100 years ago, Emma Southworth was the most popular author in the U.S. She wrote more than 50 novels in the second half of the 19th century, and made quite a good living doing it. She also taught school, until writing paid enough for a comfortable life for herself and her two children. Her husband had long ago deserted them. Imagine being a woman and having to live by your wits back then.
Recently, my mom gave me one of her novels, an antique hardback charmingly incorporating a lovely, plump-cheeked, thin-lipped woman’s face onto the cardboard front cover and bearing the title (in blue) “The Brides Fate” (no apostrophe) and in smaller blue letters underneath “Mrs. Southworth.”
Mom knows I love antique books, but then she started to read it and couldn’t put it down. When I finally got my prize, same thing happened. Southworth knows how to pace a story, and despite the now outdated sentimentality, and all too familiar scenarios (husband doesn’t value wife’s worth, acts an ass, baby is kidnapped, duel wounds husband/ass) I had to read to the finish.
Turns out The Brides Fate is sequel to another book about an abandoned wife. So the hunt is on to find that one now. One book leads to another. And another. Two things remarkable about this book and author. First, Southworth managed to thrive in a man’s world, and, next, despite being wildly popular, even critically acclaimed, in her day, she is now almost completely forgotten.
The first fact is encouraging and the second’s sort of sad. I can’t help think about The Writer’s Fate every time I enter a bookstore. So many books. So many writers. It is not a career to enter into thinking your name will be forever inscribed in the hearts of the literary world. Cause probably, it won’t.
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