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Star Swamp
Mar. 6th, 2016 07:48 pmWe will be at Star Swamp tomorrow, if anyone is interested in attending.
Mar. 6th, 2016
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth, Her Mother's Secret, 1910
EDEN Southworth wrote: ‘It was in these darkest days of my woman’s life that my author’s life commenced’.
She married a wastrel and they parted in 1844 when she had a toddler and was pregnant with a second child. Southworth wrote to support herself, and after a rocky start did extremely well. She secured an exclusive arrangement with the New York Ledger, meaning that all her works had a readership of 100,000s in magazine form before their reissue in book form. She arguably had a readership as big as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, but has been forgotten by modern literary criticism.
Southwoorth basically wrote soap operas. The descriptions are incredibly lush. It’s all about appearance. I am struck by the details of the appearance of the women in *Her Mother’s Secret* (1910).
'She took her daughter’s arm, and they arose from the sofa.
For a moment they stood, quite accidentally, facing a tall mirror, between two windows on the opposite side of the room, and that mirror for the moment reflected two beautiful forms, of which it would be difficult to decide the one to bear off the palm for beauty.
The elder lady, Elfrida Force, was a tall, stately blonde, with a superbly rounded form, a rich complexion, and an affluence of golden brown hair, rippling all over her fine head, and gathered into a mass at the nape of her graceful neck. She wore an inexpensive, closely fitting dress of dark blue serge, whose very plainness set off the perfection of her figure and enhanced the brilliancy of her complexion, showing to the best advantage that splendid beauty, which at the age of thirty-five had reached its zenith. Just now, however, the vivid 8brightness of her bloom had faded to a pale rose tint, and her lovely blue eyes seemed heavy with unshed tears.
Her young daughter, Odalite, equally beautiful in her way, was yet of an entirely opposite type. She was of medium height, and her form, though well rounded, was slender almost to fragility. Her head was small, and covered with rippling, jet black hair. Her eyes and eyebrows were black as jet; her features were delicate and regular; and her complexion was of a clear, ivory-white. She wore a crimson, merino dress, plainly made, closely fitting, and relieved only by narrow, white ruffles at throat and wrists.
Only for a moment they paused, and then they walked out of the room, and the pretty picture disappeared.'
Frustratingly, I randomly chose *Her Mother’s Secret* and it turns out that the two sequels are not available except in hard copy. I was enthralled by the melodrama but not enough to spend roughly $50 per book on the sequels. I shall have to live not knowing what happened in the end. What is the terrible secret that Elfrida Force is hiding? Will Colonel Angus Anglesea succeed in blackmailing Odalite into marrying him? Or will she marry the noble, young Leonidas? I will literally never know.
Though I can guess.
EDEN Southworth wrote: ‘It was in these darkest days of my woman’s life that my author’s life commenced’.
She married a wastrel and they parted in 1844 when she had a toddler and was pregnant with a second child. Southworth wrote to support herself, and after a rocky start did extremely well. She secured an exclusive arrangement with the New York Ledger, meaning that all her works had a readership of 100,000s in magazine form before their reissue in book form. She arguably had a readership as big as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, but has been forgotten by modern literary criticism.
Southwoorth basically wrote soap operas. The descriptions are incredibly lush. It’s all about appearance. I am struck by the details of the appearance of the women in *Her Mother’s Secret* (1910).
'She took her daughter’s arm, and they arose from the sofa.
For a moment they stood, quite accidentally, facing a tall mirror, between two windows on the opposite side of the room, and that mirror for the moment reflected two beautiful forms, of which it would be difficult to decide the one to bear off the palm for beauty.
The elder lady, Elfrida Force, was a tall, stately blonde, with a superbly rounded form, a rich complexion, and an affluence of golden brown hair, rippling all over her fine head, and gathered into a mass at the nape of her graceful neck. She wore an inexpensive, closely fitting dress of dark blue serge, whose very plainness set off the perfection of her figure and enhanced the brilliancy of her complexion, showing to the best advantage that splendid beauty, which at the age of thirty-five had reached its zenith. Just now, however, the vivid 8brightness of her bloom had faded to a pale rose tint, and her lovely blue eyes seemed heavy with unshed tears.
Her young daughter, Odalite, equally beautiful in her way, was yet of an entirely opposite type. She was of medium height, and her form, though well rounded, was slender almost to fragility. Her head was small, and covered with rippling, jet black hair. Her eyes and eyebrows were black as jet; her features were delicate and regular; and her complexion was of a clear, ivory-white. She wore a crimson, merino dress, plainly made, closely fitting, and relieved only by narrow, white ruffles at throat and wrists.
Only for a moment they paused, and then they walked out of the room, and the pretty picture disappeared.'
Frustratingly, I randomly chose *Her Mother’s Secret* and it turns out that the two sequels are not available except in hard copy. I was enthralled by the melodrama but not enough to spend roughly $50 per book on the sequels. I shall have to live not knowing what happened in the end. What is the terrible secret that Elfrida Force is hiding? Will Colonel Angus Anglesea succeed in blackmailing Odalite into marrying him? Or will she marry the noble, young Leonidas? I will literally never know.
Though I can guess.