Augusta J. Evans (1835–1909)
Auteur van St. Elmo
Over de Auteur
Ontwarringsbericht:
(eng) Birth date note: Per the old book "A Woman of the Century", birth date is listed as 1836. Per the website "A Celebration of Women Writers", birth date is listed as 1835.
Fotografie: Augusta Jane C. Evans Wilson (1835-1909), Buffalo Electrotype and Engraving Co., Buffalo, N.Y.
Werken van Augusta J. Evans
Gerelateerde werken
The Romantic Friendship Reader: Love Stories Between Men in Victorian America (2003) — Medewerker — 16 exemplaren
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Officiële naam
- Wilson, Augusta Jane Evans
- Geboortedatum
- 1835-05-08
- Overlijdensdatum
- 1909-05-09
- Graflocatie
- Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama, USA
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- USA
- Geboorteplaats
- Columbus, Georgia, USA
- Woonplaatsen
- Columbus, Georgia, USA
Mobile, Alabama, USA
Texas, USA - Beroepen
- novelist
- Korte biografie
- Augusta Jane Wilson, née Evans, was born into a large family in Columbus, Georgia. She received little formal education but was a voracious reader from an early age. Her father went bankrupt and lost the family's estate in the 1840s, and moved his family to San Antonio, Texas. In 1850, at age 15 she wrote the novel Inez: A Tale of the Alamo, which was published anonymously in 1855. During the Mexican-American War, the family moved to Mobile, Alabama. Her next novel, Beulah, published in 1853, was a bestseller and established her as a professional author. During the Civil War, Augusta Evans became a staunch Southern patriot and was active as a propagandist. She broke off her engagement to James Reed Spalding, a New York journalist because he supported the Union. She went to Fort Morgan on Mobile Bay to nurse sick and wounded Confederate soldiers, sewed sandbags for the defense of the town, wrote patriotic speeches, and set up a hospital near her home. Her propaganda masterpiece was Macaria (1864), popular on both sides of the Mason–Dixon line. Her most famous novel was St. Elmo (1866) a bestseller that inspired the naming of hotels, steamboats, and a cigar brand, and was adapted for both the stage and film. After the war, Augusta married Colonel Lorenzo Madison Wilson, a Confederate veteran, 27 years her senior, becoming Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, the name by which she is remembered. Her husband became vastly wealthy and she became the first lady of Mobile society. She wrote more novels and is now considered a pillar of Southern literature.
- Ontwarringsbericht
- Birth date note: Per the old book "A Woman of the Century", birth date is listed as 1836. Per the website "A Celebration of Women Writers", birth date is listed as 1835.
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- Werken
- 9
- Ook door
- 3
- Leden
- 410
- Populariteit
- #59,368
- Waardering
- 3.4
- Besprekingen
- 5
- ISBNs
- 117
The souls of our dead need not the aid of Sandalphon to interpret the whispers that rise tremulously from the world of sin and wrestling, that float up among the stars, through the gates of pearl, down the golden streets of New Jerusalem.
and:
In delirious visions she saw her grandfather now struggling in the grasp of Phlegyas, and now writhing in the fiery tomb of Uberti, with jets of flame leaping through his white hair, and his shrunken hands stretched appealingly toward her, as she had seen those of the doom Ghibelline leader, in the hideous Dante picture.
Finally:
Symmetrical and grand as that temple of Juno, in shrouded Pompeii, whose polished shafts gleamed centuries ago in the morning sunshine of a day of woe, whose untimely night has endured for nineteen hundred years, so, in the glorious flush of his youth, this man had stood facing a noble and possibly a sanctified future…
Well, you get the gist. It goes on and on this way and at no point do you care a pittance what happens to any of the characters introduced here. As a matter of fact, the heroine prays around page 25 that the Lord will see fit to take her from her woeful lot, and I devoutly wished he would.
I suspect the point in writing this book was to display for the world the author’s considerable knowledge of Classical references and demonstrate the extent of her Classical education. I can sympathize. What else was she to do with it? I will not read the rest of the book to prove this point--but I’m betting I could tell you precisely what happens to the main character and the gentleman that she finds so crude and unkind on first encounter. I don’t see much in the way of originality or creativity on display here.
I am calling the challenge done, writing this book off as a bad idea, and moving on to something I hope will be infinitely better. After all, there are William Gay’s and Lee Smith’s that I have yet to read!
BTW, Amazon, I want my 99-cents back.… (meer)