By Sarah Barnwell Elliott

Low Country Press brings back to print the first novel by a noted female southern author. Bound by duty and honor, to her father, the beautiful Helen marries her cousin Philip Felmere, in hopes that love will follow. That same dedication to duty and honor prevent Helen from following her heart as she meets Felix Gordon. The genuine goodness of Felix brings a spark of life to Helen and inspires her own creativity. Having been raised with logic and reason in an age of faith, Helen is yet attracted to strong faith in others, like Felix. An ongoing battle between faith and reason plays itself out as a struggle within Helen, who ultimately must decide where she stands.

This new edition of the 1879 novel by Sarah Barnwell Elliott has been updated with contemporary spelling and punctuation, a preface giving the book’s historical background, and questions for discussion for book clubs.

Retail Price: $11.95
Paperback: 282 pages
Publisher: Low Country Press (September 3, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0988304406
ISBN-13: 978-0988304406
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches

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About Sarah Barnwell Elliott

Like the strong female characters in her novels, Sarah Elliott’s own life cut against the grain of the cultural expectations of the Southern aristocracy into which she was born. She is almost always described as the daughter of The Rt. Rev. Stephen Elliott, Jr. the first Episcopal Bishop of Georgia. Her relationship with her father did significantly shape her thinking as one can read so clearly in this her first novel. Yet Sada, as she preferred to be called, was very much her own person.Born the fifth of six children to the Bishop, Sarah Bull Barnwell Elliott (November 29, 1848 – August 30, 1928) entered a life of privilege. She counted four colonial governors among her recent ancestors. In the shadow of these noted men of their times grew a unique woman who defied social expectations to forge a substantial body of well-reviewed and widely read books together with shorter pieces in national magazines, many literary reviews, a biography, and a play.

She moved to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee with her mother in 1871, the year after classes started at the university. Other than living in New York City from 1896 to 1904, she would live at Sewanee the remainder of her life. It was while living at Sewanee, when Sada was 31 years old, that D. Appleton Company of Chicago published The Felmeres. Following the success of this novel, she began to publish a number of short pieces.

The daughter and granddaughter of well known Southern aristocrats, she continued the Elliott legacy far beyond its antebellum trajectory. She was a product of the liberal education and the progressive household in which she was raised. Sada charted an independent course moving from writing to her petition calling on the Tennessee legislature to grant women the right to vote. She became a pivotal figure in the move for women’s suffrage.

Praise for the first edition of The Felmeres

“In many places it rises to a height of absorbing interest and is every- where interesting from a psychological point of view.”—Boston Gazette

“A very clever psychological novel…The work is cleverly done, and is thoroughly worth reading.”—New York World

“Its whole diction is the instrument of a well-stored, alert and accomplished intellect. The theme, too, is notably suggestive—indeed, the author of Middlemarch could hardly find a situation more suggestive or more deserving of elaborate and earnest treatment.”—New York Sun

“The book is a production altogether out of and above the common order; a book in which the author displays a fine ability for treating a lofty subject firmly and adequately, while giving to it a warm human interest, in which is not lacking the element of dramatic force….It is a very remarkable book. Prophecies are never safe where young authors are concerned, but in the case of this particular author it may be said, at least, that she has produced the strongest and most promising book of the season.”— Philadelphia Times

“This is a very solid, serious novel. It is a sincere and pious effort to cast out the goddess of reason, and enthrone in her place the angel of faith.”—Missouri Republican

“We have read The Felmeres with uncommon interest, and we call it a more than ordinarily powerful story. So well are its characters drawn, and the circumstances described, that the story is very engrossing.”—Boston Congregationalist