I’m continuing my Victorian American woman writer series with Susan Bogart Warner (1819-1885), who virtually faded from literary history, although she wrote the first “bestseller” in American history.
The Wide, Wide World, published in 1850, accumulated thirteen U.S. editions in the first two years of publication. Warner wrote the book to ease her family’s financial difficulties and continued to be published in 106 editions for the next eighty years. The book was also translated into seven languages.
Although it was her most successful novel, Warner also wrote twenty-nine additional books for both children and adults. She collaborated with her sister Anna in several of her works. But her career as a novelist developed out of her father’s poor business dealings leading to financial hardship for her family. Warner’s mother died shortly after Anna’s birth and a paternal aunt kept house and helped to raise her brother’s children. Warner’s aunt encouraged her to write to help her household survive.
Susan had been born into a traditional Victorian family of success and wealth and given the training a daughter born into such a family would receive. She had lessons in French, Italian, singing, dancing, piano, history, theology and mathematics. In her early life through her teens, she lived in spacious townhouses at fashionable New York City addresses. After her father suffered financial losses in the Panic of 1837, her family had to move permanently to the summer cottage on Constitution Island. The standard of living slid until the 1840s. At that time they declared bankruptcy and sold their remaining luxury items, including Susan’s beloved piano.
It was out of these desperate circumstances that the novel The Wide, Wide World was conceived. She published the book under a pseudonym, Elizabeth Wetherell. The manuscript was rejected by a number of publishing houses and finally accepted by Putman. However, Warner was forced to sell a large portion of her royalties over to Putnam in exchange for immediate cash. Most of the money she made on the book went to pay off her father’s debts. She never stopped writing because of the dire need for cash to make ends meet.
For more information on Susan Bogard Warner, visit these sites:
http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/warner1.html
http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/susan-bogert-warner/
Wow, her life reads like a fiction novel.
What a sad story. I’ve alwasy thought it was horrible that children had to pay their parents debts.
Hi, Gerri and Ella! Shows how you can get ideas for fictional heroines from real life historical people. And it really is sad that her father was the one who ruined her life, but she likely wouldn’t have written that bestselling novel otherwise. Shame she didn’t profit from it, though.
Susan, her life sounds like one of today’s Victorian novels, doesn’t it? I’m so glad you wrote about her, because I’d never heard of her prior to your post. Thanks for your research.
Hi, Caroline! Neither had I, although I did discover her pen name and the title of the novel when I was doing research for one of my historical romances. I was trying to find a contemporary novel of the times for one of my characters to read.