Augusta Jane Evans

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.

Biography

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. Evans's time there would inspire her first published literary work. In 1850, at the age of 15 she wrote "Inez: A Tale of the Alamo", a sentimental, moralistic, anti-Catholic love story. It told the story of one orphan's spiritual journey from religious skepticism to devout faith. She presented the manuscript to her father as a Christmas gift in 1854. It was published anonymously in 1855.