Augusta Jane Evans

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Augusta Jane Evans (Wilson) (May 8, 1835 - May 9, 1909) was an American novelist, born in Columbus, Georgia. Evans' writing is often described as domestic sentimentalism.

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[edit] Biography

Evans was the eldest of eight children born to Matthew Ryan and Sarah (Howard) Evans. Her father was a prominent merchant of Columbus and her mother was the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. In the early 1840s, her father's firm went bankrupt causing him to lose his mansion, Sherwood Hall, his slaves, and several items of personal property.

In 1845, the Evans family moved to Texas, settling in San Antonio. Evans' mother taught her at home as the family could not afford to send her to one of San Antonio's girl academies. She was an avid reader, with interests ranging from philosophy to science, and demonstrated a remarkable memory. After the Mexican War, the family, concerned with the ongoing dangers of life of the frontier, left Texas and settled in Mobile, Alabama. There the family met with a series of difficulties including a fire that destroyed home and property. Wanting to assist the family economically, Evans secretly wrote a novel which became Inez: A Tale of the Alamo. She presented it to her father on Christmas 1854. The novel was published the subsequent year. Inez met with poor reviews and failed to sell well. However, Evans second novel, Beulah, published in 1859, was much more successful.

Prior to the Civil War, Evans was engaged to marry a journalist from New York City named James Reed Spaulding; however, due to his support for Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860, Evans called off the engagement. During the war, Evans devoted herself to the Confederate cause, sewing, writing, and even offering up her house as a private hospital. She felt that her efforts were not enough and expressed her frustration in a letter to General P.G.T. Beauregard. Deciding to offer her writing talents to the Confederate cause, she penned the novel Macaria, published in 1864, which was essentially pro-Confederate propaganda. In spite of its subject matter, many Northerners and even Union troops read the novel. General George Thomas specifically ordered copies of the novel found in his ranks confiscated and burned.

After the war, Evans accompanied her brother to New York City, where he sought treatment for his paralyzed arm, a wound he received in the war. While there, she met with her publisher who presented her with the royalties from Macaria's northern sales. Impressed with her own popularity as a writer, Evans immediately completed St. Elmo, which was published in 1866. St. Elmo was her most successful novel, selling over a million copies and becoming one of the bestselling novels of the nineteenth century. The novel's heroine, Edna Earl, inspired many a christening of anything from babies to boats. While the novel was wildly popular with the public, literary critics were not impressed with it, one writer declaring that "[t]he trouble with the heroine of St. Elmo is that she swallowed an unabridged dictionary."

In 1868, Evans married Colonel Lorenzo Madison Wilson, a wealthy man much older than she. She lived with him at Ashland, his Mobile estate. In her years at Ashland, she published three more novels. Wilson died in 1891. Thereafter, Evans lived with her brother in Mobile and published two more novels. She died in 1909 and was interred in Magnolia Cemetery.

[edit] List of novels

  • Inez, A Tale of the Alamo, (1856)
  • Beulah, (1859)
  • Macaria, (1864)
  • St. Elmo, (1866)
  • Vashti, (1869)
  • Infelice, (1875)
  • At the Mercy of Tiberius, (1887)
  • A speckled Bird, (1902)
  • Devota, (1907)

[edit] References

  • New Georgia Encyclopedia
  • Riepina, Anne Sophia, Fire and Fiction: Augusta Jane Evans in Context (2000)

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Evans, Augusta Jane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilson, Augusta Jane
SHORT DESCRIPTION Novelist
DATE OF BIRTH 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Columbus, Georgia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH 1909
Languages