St. Elmo was the most famed and beloved novel by Augusta Jane Evans, a June 2015 inductee into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. First published in 1866, Evans’s rich tale of the relationship between the dashing and worldly St. Elmo and Edna Earl, an exemplar of virtuous Southern womanhood, sold over a million copies in four months and became one of the nineteenth century’s most influential novels.

This edition includes an introduction by Evans scholar Diane Roberts about the enduring relevance and legacy of St. Elmo as a work of literature as well as a reflection of gender roles and the seismic societal changes taking place in the United States in the aftermath of the Civil War.