Send us a textDastardly villains are no match for Capitola Black, the audacious heroine at the center of E.D.E.N. Southworth’s 1859 bestseller, The Hidden Hand. Readers so admired this literary tomboy’s pluck that Capitola became a popular baby name for decades and inspired the name of a California town. Yet few readers today are familiar with Southworth, one of the highest-earning authors of her day (to whom Louisa May Alcott even gave a subtle nod in Little Women). Rose Neal, author of a brand new biography on Southworth, joins us this week to discuss the writer who gave 19th-century young women permission to imagine lives free from convention and restraint.Mentioned in this episode:E.D.E.N. Southworth’s Hidden Hand: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Nineteenth-Century Author by Rose NealThe Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. SouthworthThe Company of Books bookstore Retribution by E.D.E.N. SouthworthThe Deserted Wife by E.D.E.N. SouthworthHarriet Beecher StoweElizabeth BlackwellWide, Wide World by Susan WarnerTreasure Island by Robert Louis StevensonLittle Women by Louisa May AlcottThe Saturday VisitorThe National EraJohn Greenleaf WhittierJane SwisshelmThe Awakening by Kate ChopinSupport the showFor episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.comSubscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

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