SOURCE: Tracey, Karen. “Britomarte, the Man-Hater: Courtship during the Civil War.” In Plots and Proposals: American Women's Fiction, 1850-90, pp. 132-47. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Tracey explicates E. D. E. N. Southworth's novel Britomarte, the Man-Hater as it portrays social and ideological disruptions in gender roles caused by the Civil War.

E. D. E. N. Southworth's post-Civil War serial Britomarte, the Man-Hater, published in two volumes as Fair Play; or, The Test of the Lone Isle (1868) and How He Won Her (1869), includes the typical features of Southworth's best-selling novels: action-adventure plots alternate and intersect with sentimental-domestic plots, courageous and unconventional heroines contrast with traditional true women, and realistic descriptions and events are interwoven with highly improbable sensational episodes. That much of the second volume of the narrative is set during the Civil War might appear to be incidental to Southworth's entertaining story; she...