Southworth, E. D. E. N., The Family Doom. Chicago: M. A. Donohue and Co. [Ca. 1910]
(180 x 120 mm) pp. 254, 4 p adverts. Softcover in very tender condition. Covers chipped, pages friable. Intact but just hanging on as an ephemeral paperback. No. 282 of Modern Author’s Library. Overall FAIR condition
E. D. E. N. Southworth (1819–1899), born Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte in Washington, D.C., was one of the most widely read American novelists of the mid-19th century. Abandoned by her husband, she supported herself and her children through fiction, becoming a prolific contributor to The New York Ledger under an exclusive contract that made her among the highest-paid writers of her day. Known for her sensational plots, Southern settings, and strong heroines, she published more than sixty novels, many serialized on both sides of the Atlantic and later translated into multiple languages. Her best-known work, The Hidden Hand (1859), was a publishing phenomenon, but she also produced a wide range of domestic dramas and social novels, including The Family Doom (1868).
Set along the Chesapeake, The Family Doom opens with the shipwreck of Captain Storms’ brigantine near Henniker House, a Maryland manor presided over by three generations of widows and their beautiful heiress, Berenice Brooke. Into this household comes the mysterious Vane Vandeleur, cast ashore by fate and quickly enmeshed in the family’s secrets. Southworth weaves together a tale of old scandals, hidden inheritances, and long-running enmities—particularly the shadow over Berenice’s father, Raphael Brooke—while conspiracies and lawsuits threaten the legitimacy of the family’s fortune. At its heart is the tragic tension between love and prohibition, as Vandeleur’s passion for Berenice collides with the mysterious “doom” that bars her from marriage. The novel closes with the family’s position vindicated in court, the Brookes’ social standing secured, and the stage set for continuation in its sequel, The Maiden Widow.