Southworths Brilliant Writing Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Southworth's Brilliant Writing    Few nineteenth-century American women novelists met with success equal to that of Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth (E.D.E.N. Southworth). Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan Warner, Fanny Fern, and others certainly sold record numbers of individual novels; however, E.D.E.N. Southworth's over 40 novels consistently became best-sellers throughout a 44-year career, making her, over time, perhaps the best-selling author, male or female, of her generation. Her stories entered into the American consciousness--becoming popular plays, shaping fashion trends, developing women's visions of themselves--as well as shaped the image of "Americanness" in the minds of international readers around the globe. In particular, Southworth's novels taught the world a vision of the American woman that equaled in power and influence James Fenimore Cooper's presentation of the American man that so captured international attention. Back at home, reviewers, critics, and other novelists either praised or rejected the immense energy of her writing, her vision, calling her the best novelist of the age or, conversely, attacking the unladylike exuberance of her prose or themes. Her primacy forced the literary world to respond--either as lovers or haters. Southworth's life trials shaped the fiction writer she became. As a woman repeatedly placed on the margins--by poverty, neglect, social stratification, status as an abandoned woman--Southworth learned to speak the language of the dispossessed. In an era when debates over human rights dominated the political and social landscape, Southworth wrote fiction celebrating strong independent women, aboli... ... to rewrite nineteenth-century literary history to include Southworth, for she reflected and commented upon the social realities for women in her time, argued for human rights for many without voices, and promoted tolerance of religion, race, and class, and in doing so, captured the imagination of generations of readers. In her own time, Southworth's voice certainly carried far, reaching across the country and over the oceans to England, France, Germany, and Iceland to touch the hearts and minds of millions. She deserves a place in literary history, not only for the impact she had on readers, but also for the lessons she teaches us about nineteenth-century culture, social tensions, and gender, class, and race ideology. Southworth stands, then as now, as a vital figure in the development of the novel in America.