Madaline

by Madaline Selima Edwards

On September 12, 1847, Madaline Edwards wrote in anger and despair to her married lover, a New Orleans businessman named Charles Bradbury: "I am nothing to you only an object of hate....I would if I dared ask to see you one time more no matter where or how, but I know you will hate me even for the desire. Oh! God can you ever know my feelings." A final bitter exchange of letters followed, and then their four-year affair was over. Cut off from Bradbury's support and under to pressure to vacate the house he had provided for her, Edwards was alone and on her own. Estranged from most of her family and without prospects for employment or a respectable marriage, she was more than ever at odds with a society that placed a premium on women's domestic stability and dependence on men. All that is likely to be known about the affair is told in this selection of Edwards's private writings. Offering a rare glimpse into the life and mind of an ordinary woman on the fringes of her middle-class societ