Elizabeth Stoddard earned little popular notice and moderate critical attention in her day, but she has since been recognized as an early experimenter with realism. Her three novels demonstrate an attention to the psychological intricacies of characters and an attempt to avoid whitewashing life with stock sentiment. Much of Stoddard's short fiction, written for magazines with the hope of quick financial gain, tends toward the standard plots and sentimental rhetoric of the women's fiction of her day, but some of her stories stand out as honest portrayals of character or distinctive situations. Because of her focus on hidden passions and the darker side of domestic life, modern critics have compared her fiction with that of Romantic writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Brontë sisters.

The oldest of two daughters and six sons born to Wilson and Betsy Drew Barstow, Elizabeth Drew Barstow was born on 6 May...