Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

She also corresponded with a Jewish woman, This story of love, betrayal, and redemption set during the Texan war for independence in the 1830s, marked by heavy helpings of anti-Catholicism in its portrayal of a sinister, stereotypical Jesuit priest, sold poorly.

Augusta Jane Evans Wilson grew up in Alabama, from whence her family had moved from Georgia due to her father's economic woes. Wilson was one of the last major authors of the domestic novel, a genre focusing on the personal growth of a female character, usually including a major plot. An erudite woman, Wilson adhered to the genre's basic outlines, but veered from it by incorporating explicit religious, philosophical, and political themes into most of her novels. According to family lore, Wilson secretly wrote a novel at age 15, which she presented to her father as a Christmas present in 1850.

She made her debut as a professional author at age 20 when this novel, the first of nine, was published as _Inez_ in 1855. However, Wilson later adopted a tolerant stance toward all Christian denominations.

However, Wilson's next work, Beulah (1859), the story of an orphaned young woman's disaffection from religion and then conversion back to Christianity, was a bestseller, especially among young women. In Beulah, Wilson also laid out her vision of women as the guardians of Christian morality, as the title heroine devotes herself to the conversion of her newly wed husband, a long-standing atheist. By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, Wilson had achieved, for a lady, an unusual status, respected for her erudition and political commitment by a great number of prominent Southern men, including Confederate General P. G. T. Beuregard, with whom she corresponded. Unlike the classic Southern lady, Wilson placed her ideological principles above her personal life, breaking off her engagement to a Northern journalist because of his pro-Union views.

Wilson leaped into the arena of literary agitprop with her third novel,Macaria, or Altars of Sacrifice (1863), which was dedicated to the Confederate soldiers and overtly championed the cause of Southern independence. Macaria was not only a bestseller in the Confederacy, but it was so effective as propaganda among Union soldiers that it was banned in the North. The novel inverted a central premise of the domestic novel - the heroine's marriage to her true love - by having the central character forgo marrying the man whom she loved in favor of celibate dedication to the new Southern nation, which, unlike the despotic North, was truly devoted to republican liberty. However, it was after the Civil War that Evans achieved her greatest success with St.

Elmo (1866), a more conventional domestic novel once again concerning a moody, Heathcliff-like man who improves his character and accepts Christianity (in this case, even becoming a monster) because of the love of a virtuous woman. St. Elmo was a runaway bestseller and became a fixture of popular culture.

After her marriage to 60-year-old widower Lorenzo Madison Wilson in 1868, Wilson's literary output slowed, and none of her later novels achieved the popularity of St. Elmo.

Her first two novels after her marriage were Vashti (1869) and Infelice (1875), which were both strikingly apolitical and concerned women living under assumed identities who had been wronged by and were now estranged from their husbands.

She followed up these efforts with At the Mercy of Tiberius (1887) and A Speckled Bird (1902).

In her final years, she wrote a brief work that she originally intended to be a short story, but a publisher wanted another book from her, so the story was published as a short novel, Devota (1907).

This was her last publication before her death at age 74 on May 9, 1909. Wilson's novels remained popular until ca.

1950.

William Perry Fidler wrote a biography of the author, which was published in 1951. However, due to her didactic approach to writing, her classical actions, and her reactionary views on race, women's roles, the Confederacy, and Reconstruction, her popularity plummeted after the mid-20th century. Wilson quickly lapsed into obscurity. However, recently, scholarly interest in Wilson has grown.

Wilson is also mentioned in a number of 1990s historical and literary-critical scholarly works.

In 1992, Louisiana State University Press published editions of Beulah and Macaria, with prefaces by, respectively, noted Southern/women's historians Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Drew Gilpin Faust.

Anne Sophie Riepma published a biography/literary analysis, Fire and Fiction, in 2000.