Hers is not a well known name today but Sarah Ann Ellis Dorsey was one of the most important female writers of fiction in the U.S. during the mid nineteenth century. Moreover, she has a Shreveport connection, in that she and her husband were among the thousands of refugees from the Gulf Coast and south Louisiana who fled here after Union conquests in that vicinity during the Civil War.

Sarah Dorsey was the daughter of a wealthy planter family of Adams County, Mississippi. Their family home, "Routhland," still stands today at Natchez, Mississippi, though long ago re-named "Dunlieth." Indeed, Sarah is buried just across the street from Dunlieth in the old Routh family cemetery, the burial ground established by her mother's family. On her tombstone are the titles of her books, which she considered her offspring and her greatest achievement.

A close girlhood friend of Sarah's was Varina Howell, later to become the wife of statesman Jefferson Davis, the Mississippi senator, U.S. army general, and U.S. Secretary of War who reluctantly became president of the Confederate States of America but who served his country ably and passionately throughout the war that followed. In later years Sarah Dorsey was to offer the Davises her Biloxi estate, "Beauvoir," to live in, though by then relations between her and Varina were strained. The very year of Sarah's death she sold Beauvoir to President Davis.

Sarah's life was a fascinating one. She grew up at Routhland and after her mother's death Charles Dahlgren, the son of the Norwegian ambassador to the U.S. and a descendant of Norwegian and Swedish aristocracy, became her stepfather (Charles later was a Confederate general in the Mississippi militia; his brother John was a Union admiral and inventor of the then-revolutionary cannon type known as the Dahlgren gun). Sarah married a wealthy Marylander, traveled to Europe, Arabia, and throughout the Americas in an era when few traveled far beyond their birthplace, and befriended many of the leaders of the Confederate government and military during her thirties when she lived in Shreveport.

Even during the war her husband continued to travel, leaving Sarah alone for extended periods. Her friendships with members of the Confederate high command, all male of course, led to rumors of impropriety since in that era it was uncommon, even unheard of, for women to exert the sort of independence that Sarah Dorsey did. Still, she was popular among the men and didn't really care what the women thought. Ultimately, this is what strained her relations with her old friend Varina, at whose marriage to Jefferson Davis she had even been a member of the wedding party.

In Shreveport Sarah began her writing career, preparing a biography of her friend Gov. (and General) Henry Watkins Allen. Allen's sudden death in Mexico City shortly after his departure from Shreveport following the Trans-Mississippi's surrender spurred her to publish the book immediately under the title Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen. After the completion of this, her only non-fiction work, Sarah Dorsey embarked upon a career as a novelist, first publishing most of her works in serial form in national magazines but afterward collecting the parts into book form.

Her novels proved extremely popular and she ranked among what today we would call the best selling writers of her day, though no statistics of such were kept in that era. Her titles include Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, Agnes Graham, Athalie, The Vivians, Lucia Dare, Essays On Arisnism, Ancient History, Panola, Vivacious Castine, and one entitled S. & C. & C.

In 1873 she purchased Beauvoir and after the death of her husband lived there exclusively, offering it to the Davises who were rendered destitute by Congress's refusal to restore President Davis's citizenship. At Beauvoir he wrote his landmark Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, which helped to support and ultimately to restore his and his family's finances.

In 1879 Sarah sold Beauvoir to the Davises and moved to New Orleans where she was, incidentally, the first and for a time only female member of the New Orleans Academy of Arts and Sciences. There, just weeks after moving from Beauvoir, she died at the age of fifty years.

Thus ended the brilliant career of one of the South's, and indeed the nation's, first influential woman writers. Unfortunately, Sarah Dorsey's novels did not continue to see publication after her death and by the twentieth century they, as well as her name itself, had faded largely into obscurity.

Now, thanks to Shreveport's Ritz Publications, Sarah Ann Ellis Dorsey is again receiving some of the attention due her, with the publication of three of her novels and also her biography of Gov. Allen, which was recently reviewed in this column. Once again readers can enjoy these exquisite Victorian romances by one of the true literary artists of the day. Through their pages Sarah Dorsey again speaks and through these exquisite facsimile editions the reader can once again experience precisely what fellow readers did well over a century ago for the format is identical to the original editions, even down to the pagination and fonts.

Lucia Dare (1867) contains 138 pages; Agnes Graham (1869), 121 pages; Athalie (1872), 109 pages. Each limited edition volume is printed on archival linen paper and bound in gilt embossed burgundy leatherette. They are available from Ritz Publications for $79.95 plus $5.00 shipping per book. Ritz Publications may be reached at P. O. Box 29182 Shreveport 71149 or at www.ritzpublications.com. (318-996-0419) Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, published in 1866, contains 420 pages and is also $79.95 from Ritz.

Eric J. Brock, Historian
Forum
June 15, 2005

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