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Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

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EMMA DOROTHY ELIZA NEVITTE SOUTHWORTH (1819-1899), American novelist, was born in Washington, D.C., on the 26th of December 1819. She studied in a school kept by her stepfather, Joshua L. Henshaw, and in 1840 married Frederick H. Southworth, of Utica, N.Y. After 1843 she supported herself by teaching. Her first story,"The Irish Refugee," was published in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Her first novel,"Retribution," a serial for the National Era, published in book form in 1846, was so well received that she gave up teaching and became a regular contributor to various periodicals, especially the New York Ledger. She lived in Georgetown, D.C., until 1876, then in Yonkers, N.Y., and again in Georgetown, D.C., where she died on the 30th of June 1899.

Her novels numbered more than sixty; some of them were translated into German, French and Spanish; in 1872 an edition of thirtyfive volumes was published in Philadelphia. They include The Deserted Wife (1850); Mark Sutherland (1853); Hickory Hall (1855); Unknown (1874); Gloria (1877); The Trail of the Serpent (1879); Nearest and Dearest (1881); The Mother's Secret (1883); An Exile's Bride (1887); The Hidden Hand (1888); and Broken Pledges (1891).