The prolific nineteenth-century writer E. D. E. N. Southworth
enjoyed enormous public success in her day--she published nearly
fifty novels during her career--but that very popularity, combined
with her gender, led to her almost complete neglect by the critical
establishment before the emergence of academic feminism. Even now,
most scholarship on Southworth focuses on her most famous novel,
The Hidden Hand. However, this new book--the first since the 1930s
devoted entirely to Southworth--shows the depth of her career
beyond that publication and reassesses her place in American
literature.
Editors Melissa Homestead and Pamela Washington have gathered
twelve original essays from both established and emerging scholars
that set a new agenda for the study of E. D. E. N. Southworth's
works. Following an introduction by the editors, these articles are
divided into four thematic clusters. The first, "Serial
Southworth," treats her fiction in periodical publication contexts.
"Southworth's Genres," the second grouping, considers her use of a
range of genres beyond the sentimental novel and the domestic
novel. In the third part, "Intertextual Southworth," the essays
present intensive case studies of Southworth's engagement with
literary traditions such as Greek and Restoration drama and with
her contemporaries such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and French
novelist George Sand. Southworth's focus on social issues and
reform figures prominently throughout the volume, but the pieces in
the fourth section, "Southworth, Marriage, and the Law," present a
sustained inquiry into the ways in which marriage law and the
status of women in the nineteenth century engaged her literary
imagination.
The collection concludes with the first chronological bibliography
of Southworth's fiction organized by serialization date rather than
book publication. For the first time, scholars will be able to
trace the publication history of each novel and will be able to
access citations for lesser-known and previously unknown
works.
With its fresh approach, this volume will be of great value to
students and scholars of American literature, women's studies, and
popular culture studies.
MELISSA J. HOMESTEAD is the Susan J. Rosowski Associate Professor
of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her book American
Women Authors and Literary Property, 1822-1869 includes Southworth,
and her articles on American women's writing have been published in
a variety of academic journals.
PAMELA T. WASHINGTON is Professor of English and former dean of the
College of Liberal Arts at the University of Central Oklahoma. She
is the co-author of Fresh Takes: Explorations in Reading and
Writing: A Freshman Composition Text.
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