The Gothic and the "Southern Lady": Catherine Warfield's The Household of Bouverie
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-5-2021
Department
English
School
Humanities
Abstract
Despite the claim that The Household of Bouverie; or, The Elixir of Gold (1860) is “By a Southern Lady,” the novel lacks many of the markers that we have come to associate with southern literature, at least until its later sections. This essay examines Bouverie’s shifting relationship to region, focusing on the role that the Gothic plays in telling a story of spousal abuse that simultaneously indicts the institution of slavery. While it is unlikely that this “southern lady”—writing on the eve of the Civil War—intended to critique the “peculiar institution,” slavery’s ghosts haunt her novel nonetheless.
Publication Title
American Women's Regionalist Fiction
First Page
177
Last Page
94
Recommended Citation
Weinauer, E.
(2021). The Gothic and the "Southern Lady": Catherine Warfield's The Household of Bouverie. American Women's Regionalist Fiction, 177-94.
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/18506