Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth (December 26, 1819 - June 30, 1899) was an American writer of more than 60 novels in the latter part of the 19th century. She was the most popular American novelist of her day.Raised in Washington, D. C., Southworth studied in a school kept by her stepfather, Joshua L. Henshaw, and in 1840 married inventor Frederick H. Southworth, of Utica, New York. E.D.E.N. Southworth moved with her husband out to Wisconsin to become a teacher. After 1843, she returned to Washington, D.C. without her husband and with two young children. She began to write stories to support herself and her children when her husband deserted her in 1844. Her first story, "The Irish Refugee", was published in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. Some of her earliest works appeared in The National Era, the newspaper that printed Uncle Tom's Cabin. The bulk of her work appeared as a serial in Robert Bonner's New York Ledger, and in 1857 Southworth signed a contract to write exclusively for this publication.