Augusta Jane Evans
Augusta’s father went bankrupt when she was ten years old, and the family moved by covered wagon to San Antonio, Texas. They later moved to Mobile, Alabama, where she spent the rest of her life.
Augusta's talent for writing appeared when she was in her teens. She wrote her first book, Inez, A Tale of the Alamo, at the age of 15. It was a gift to her father, was published by Harper’s in 1855.
At the age of 18, she wrote her second novel, Beulah, published in1859, which focused on the problems of religious doubt. It sold over 22,000 copies and established her as Alabama's first professional author, and the first to earn a living from her writing.
But St. Elmo was to be her most famous novel. Hotels, boats, and towns were named in its honor. Literary critics panned the novel, but the public loved her idealized heroines and heroes. St. Elmo was adapted for the stage and screen and ranks as one of the 19th Century's most popular novels.
Augusta was one of the best-known novelists in the country during the nineteenth century. Children were named after her and her literary characters. Her strong heroines educated themselves, and then gave up their studies to become wives and mothers.
During the Civil War, she forged friendships with influential Confederate leaders, such as General P. G. T. Beauregard and J. L. M. Curry. She wrote for a Mobile newspaper and opened a private hospital for Confederate wounded with her own money.
Macaria or Altars of Sacrifice, published in 1864, expressed her enthusiasm for the Southern cause. Her books always sold magnificently—even during the Civil War, when Macaria became a bestseller in both the South and the North. The story focuses on the changes in women's roles during the war, and idealizes the sacrifices of Confederate women.
Augusta had already written most of her eight best-sellers before she married a wealthy Mobile businessman, Lorenzo Madison Wilson, in 1868. He was a widower with adult children. The couple lived at his country home, “Ashland,” outside of Mobile, where August entertained lavishly and became known as the “First Lady of Mobile.”
Her production of novels slowed considerably and reflected the changes in her own life. Her new heroines were punished, not rewarded, for their independence, and her later novels were not as popular.
Vashti, published in 1869, was a moral tale warning against the sin of willfulness. Infelice (1875) was a story of love in marriage. At the Mercy of Tiberius (1887) was a mystery.
A Speckled Bird (1902) focused on events following the Civil War. Devota (1907), emphasized Augusta’s distrust of social trends affecting American women.
When Mr. Wilson died in 1891, Augusta returned to Mobile to live near family members.
Wilson died suddenly on May 9, 1909, and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery amid the graves of Confederate soldiers. Her funeral outshone any others held in Mobile.
Copyright © 2007 Maggie MacLean
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