Autograph letter signed by US writer, E.D.E.N Southworth 1897 Prospect Cottage

SOUTHWORTH, E.D.E.N. (Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth) (1819-1899). Autograph Letter Signed, to an unidentified correspondent, discussing religion, family matters, friendship and domestic affairs. Prospect Cottage, Georgetown, Washington D.C., 24 February 1897.
 
Single folded bifolium, 4 pp., approximately 180 x 110 mm. Written in heavy pencil on all four pages. Signed "E.D.E.N. Southworth" at the conclusion. Pencil somewhat smudged in placed throughout, though the letter remains substantially legible. Old folds, a chip and a few minor spots, otherwise in good condition.
 
A lengthy personal letter written from Prospect Cottage, Southworth's celebrated Georgetown residence overlooking the Potomac, where she lived from around 1850 until her death and wrote many of the novels that established her as one of the most successful American authors of the nineteenth century. Abandoned by her husband while still a young mother, Southworth initially supported herself and her two children as a schoolteacher before achieving remarkable literary success. Her fiction first appeared serially in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era before she became one of the leading contributors to Robert Bonner's New York Ledger, with more than sixty novels remaining in print well into the twentieth century.
 
Prospect Cottage became closely identified with Southworth's literary career and was a well-known destination for visitors during her lifetime. Although the house was demolished in 1942, the site became the location for the film the Exorcist. Autograph letters by Southworth are rare.