Southworths Brilliant Writing Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Southworths 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 individualist novels however, E.D.E.N. Southworths 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 way trends, developing womens visions of themselves--as well as mold the image of Americanness in the minds of international readers around the globe. In particular, Southworths novels taught the world a vision of the American woman that equaled in power and influence James Fenimore Coopers presentation of the American man that so captured international attention. Back at home, reviewers, critics , and other novelists either praised or rejected the bulky 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. Southworths life trials shaped the fiction writer she became. As a woman repeatedly placed on the margins--by poverty, neglect, neighborly stratification, status as an abandoned woman--Southworth learned to speak the oral communication 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, Southworths voice certainly carried far, reaching across the country and over the oceans to England, France, Germany, and Iceland to raise up 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.