Augusta Jane Evans

Augusta Jane Evans (also known by her married name, Augusta Jane Wilson), was born into a prominent Georgian family on 8 May 1835 in Columbus, Georgia, USA, the eldest of eight children. Her formal schooling was scarce, but she was a self-taught learner and a voracious reader from a very early age. This love for learning would make its way into her novels, which present the urgent need to further women’s education. Her father’s bankruptcy marked the beginning of a series of moves for the Evanses until they eventually relocated to Mobile, Alabama, in 1849. Her first novel, Inez: A Tale of the Alamo, was published anonymously (1855), but, four years later, she published Beulah under her own name, which earned her some popularity. Evans was a fierce Confederate patriot and broke off her engagement with a New York journalist, James Reed Spaulding, because of his endorsement of Abraham Lincoln’s political stand. The Civil War (1861–1865) was a very active period for Evans, who organized a war hospital named “Camp Beulah” after her novel and corresponded with Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard. She also contributed a number of articles supporting the Confederacy to Southern papers as well as completing her novel Macaria. Published in two editions, in the North and in the South, in 1864, Macaria became immensely popular nationwide despite its pro-Confederate views. Her next novel, St. Elmo (1866), sold over a million copies, making Evans the most successful American woman writer, unsurpassed until the publication of Edith Wharton’s novels. Thanks to St. Elmo, she became the first American woman writer to earn $100,000 (approximately $4,000,000 in today’s money). After she married Colonel Lorenzo Wilson, in 1868, Evans divided her time between taking care of her husband and stepdaughter and her writing. Over the next years, she published Vashti (1869), Infelice (1875), At the Mercy of Tiberius (1887), A Speckled Bird (1902), and Devota (1907). Her popularity dramatically decreased when the American Library Association banned her books in 1881. She died of a heart attack on 9 May 1909 in Mobile, Alabama, and was very fittingly buried among Confederate casualties. A school in Mobile and a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Tampa, Florida, bear her name.