Bryan, Mary Edwards

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BRYAN, Mary Edwards

Born 17 May circa 1838, Lloyd, Florida; died 15 June 1913, Clarkston, Georgia

Daughter of John D. and Louisa C. Houghton Edwards; married Iredell E. Bryan, 1854

Mary Edwards Bryan spent her early years on her father's plantation near Tallahassee, Florida. Her childhood was given to outdoor sports and horseback rides through the wild woods surrounding her home. At age eleven Bryan was sent to the Fletcher Institute, a boarding school near Thomasville, Georgia. Before she was sixteen, she had already published poems and a story in the local paper.

Mystery surrounds Bryan's marriage at the age of fifteen or sixteen. An hour before she was married, she was sitting in her own room, studying her Latin lesson. Two hours afterward, she was on her way to her husband's home on the banks of the Red River. For reasons unknown, she left her husband after a year. The separation was only partial, however, because her husband was devoted to her, and visited her frequently. The couple had at least five children.

In 1858 Bryan began contributing to the Georgia Literary and Temperance Crusader, filling three to five columns every week. The expanded Crusader moved to Atlanta in 1859, and Bryan followed, serving as its literary editor. In 1868 Bryan worked for Scott's Magazine of Atlanta, and her novel The Mystery of Cedar Bay was serialized in its pages. From 1874-84, Bryan served as associate editor of Sunny South, a popular Atlanta family weekly, and began to publish her novels in book form. Bryan moved to New York City in 1885 to become assistant editor of two magazines published by George Munro, Fireside Companion and Fashion Bazaar. In her spare time, she completed at least nine novels, most of which Munro published.

Manch (1880) typifies the style and content of Bryan's fiction. Fifteen-year-old Milly Brown goes into convulsions when her husband is accused of murder. Climaxes include a race to the gallows and a scaffold confession from the heroine's supposed father, who reveals he had killed her true father for having married the woman he loved. Bryan supplements her sensational plotting with fairly believable descriptions of the bayous and border settlements.

In Wild Work (1881), purportedly based on actual incidents in recontruction Louisiana, a heroine falls in love with a carpetbagger, is disowned by her family, and dies of consumption while her husband neglects her to pursue wealth and power. Despite the melodramatic plot, Bryan's local color and history generally ring true. She stresses the credulity, superstition, and shiftlessness of the freedmen and the rapacity of the Yankees.

Bryan's poems were characterized by contemporaries as "brilliant and passionate." Although derivative, her poetry is often strong and sensitive, and its earnestness recalls the religious fervor of her youthful years. In her 1860 essay, "How Should Women Write?" Bryan discusses her aspirations as a writer, and calls upon women to write honestly about ethical and social questions. If Bryan's poems and novels generally fail to live up to her early promise and the serious aspirations of "How Should Women Write?" they offer valuable glimpses of the south both before and after the war. Bryan's achievement as a well-paid editor of Northern magazines still seems remarkable today.

Other Works:

The Bayou Bride (1886). Kildee; or, The Sphinx of the Red House (1886). Munro's Star Recitations for Parlor, School, and Exhibition (ed. by Bryan, 1887). Stormy Wedding (1887). My Own Sin; A Story of Life in New York (1888). Uncle Ned's White Child (1889). The Ghost of the Hurricane Hills, or, A Florida Girl (1891). Ruth the Outcast (1891). His Legal Wife (1894). The Girl He Bought (1895). Nan Haggard, the Heiress of Dead Hopes Mine (1895). Poems and Stories in Verse (1895). Maple Leaf Amateur Reciter, a Book of Choice Dialogues for Parlor, School and Exhibition (ed. by Bryan, 1908). Bayou Tree (n.d.). A Fair Judas (n.d.). Fugitive Bride (n.d.). Her Husband's Ghost (n.d.). His Greatest Sacrifice (n.d.). His Wife's Friend (n.d.). Sinned Against (n.d.). Three Girls (n.d.).

Bibliography:

Davidson, J. W., The Living Writers of the South (1869). Forrest, M., Women of the South Distinguished in Literature (1861). McVoy, L. C., and R. B. Campbell, A Bibliography ofFiction by Louisianians and on Louisiana Subjects (1935). Raymond, I., Southland Writers (1870). Raymond, I., The Living Female Writers of the South (1870).