A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Southworth, Emma D. E. Nevitte
SOUTHWORTH, EMMA D. E. NEVITTE,
Is the daughter of the late Charles Le Compe Nevitte and Susannah George Wailes, of St. Mary's, Maryland. On either side, her ancestors were French and English Roman Catholics, who came to America in 1632, with Calvert, and settled at St. Mary's, the first settlement in Maryland, where they became extensive land-holders. Here they continued to reside for nearly two hundred years, holding honourable posts, and taking an active part in the government of the province and the state. At the age of four. Miss Nevitte lost her father, and after that event resided with her grandmother, Mrs. Wailes, a Maryland lady of the old school, and a worthy member of the Episcopal church. Her mother was married a second time, to Joshua L. Henshaw, Esq., formerly of Boston; and to his personal instruction his step-daughter is indebted for all the education she received. In 1841, Miss Nevitte became Mrs. Southworth; and in 1843, by a sudden and overwhelming misfortune, she was left; destitute, with two infants to maintain. In 1846, she wrote her first sketch, and published it anonymously; her second story she sent to the "National Era," and its editor. Dr. Bailey, not only approved the sketch, but saw so clearly the genius and power manifested by it, that he sought out the writer, and, by his encouragement, induced her to venture more boldly on the thorny path of authorship. Her principal productions are "Retribution, or The Vale of Shadows," 1849; "The Deserted Wife," 1850; "The Mother-in-Law, or The Isle of Rays," and "Shannondale," published in 1851. She has also written several very interesting tales and sketches for periodicals.
Mrs. Southworth is yet young, both as a woman and an author; but she is a writer of great promise, and we have reason to expect that the future productions of her pen will surpass those works with which she has already favoured the reading public—works showing great powers of the imagination, and strength and depth of feeling, it is true, but also written in a wild and extravagant manner, and occasionally with a freedom of expression that almost borders on impiety. This we are constrained to say, though we feel assured that no one would shrink more reluctantly than the young writer herself from coolly and calmly approaching, with too familiar a hand, the Persons and places held sacred by all the Christian world. She seems carried, by a fervid imagination, in an enthusiasm for depicting character as it is actually found, (in which she excels,) beyond the limits prescribed by correct taste or good judgment. In other respects her novels are deeply interesting. They show, in every page, the hand of a writer of unusual genius and ability. In descriptions of Southern life, and of negro character and mode of expression, she is unequalled. She writes evidently from a full heart and an overflowing brain, and sends her works forth to the criticisms of an unimpassioned public without the advantage they would receive from a revision, and careful pruning, in some moment when calmer reflection was in the ascendancy.