St. Elmo

Augusta Jane Wilson, or Augusta Evans Wilson, (May 8, 1835 - May 9, 1909) was an American Southern author and one of the pillars of Southern literature.She was born Augusta Jane Evans on May 8, 1835, in Columbus, Georgia. The area of her birth was then known as Wynnton (now MidTown). As a young girl in 19th-century America she received little in the way of a formal education. However, she became a voracious reader at an early age.Her father, Matthew Evans, suffered bankruptcy and lost the family's Sherwood Hall property in the 1840s. He moved his family of 10 from Georgia to San Antonio, Texas, in 1845. Wilson wrote in the domestic sentimental style of the Victorian Age. Critics have praised the intellectual competence of her female characters, but as her heroes eventually succumb to traditional values, Evans has been described as an antifeminist. Of St. Elmo one critic maintained, "the trouble with the heroine of St. Elmo was that she swallowed an unabridged dictionary." Wilson was the first American woman author to earn over $100,000. This would be a record unsurpassed until Edith Wharton.