Born into the Southern planter aristocracy, Catherine Ann Warfield led a life that was, on the surface, one of privilege and relative luxury. Beneath that surface, however, persisted an underlying anxiety and sadness resulting from her often absent, yet domineering father and from her mother's family history of mental illness and tragedy. These became common motifs in the two volumes of poetry and eleven novels that Warfield published in her lifetime, as was her cautious critique of a woman's role in Southern society.

Catherine Ann Ware was born 6 June 1816 to Sarah and Major Nathaniel Ware in Natchez, Mississippi. Sarah Percy Ware, left alone with two young children in 1808 by the death of her first husband, Judge John Ellis, married Ware in 1814. Ware was an active participant in the political life of the Mississippi Territory, serving for a time as secretary of state and as acting governor from 1815 to...