Mary Edwards Bryan: Her Early Life and Works, Canter Brown Jr, Larry E. Rivers

A lost writer of the nineteenth century returns to the page with vigor. Her extreme personal trials were hidden by the moonlight and magnolias persona she assumed as her public image. This book allows the real Mary Edwards Bryan to emerge from behind her mask of Southern gentility.--Tracy J. Revels, author of Sunshine Paradise: A History of Florida Tourism

The publication of Manch in 1880 marked the beginning of Mary Edwards Bryans rise to prominence as one of nineteenth-century Americas best-known writers of mass-market fiction. At a time when women were discouraged from having jobs of their own, she made a name for herself as a thoughtful--and well-paid--editor. Despite her cultivated image as editor of Fashion Bazar and Sunny South, Bryans early life was fraught with obstacles.

In this finely crafted literary biography, Canter Brown Jr. and Larry Eugene Rivers examine Bryans formative years in Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, pairing historical insights with selections of her best writing to illustrate how the obstacles she overcame shaped what she wrote. She grew up on a frontier plantation and later lived through the upheavals of secession and war, disruptive affairs with authors and politicians, the tensions of emancipation, and pervading post-war economic disorder.