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The Hidden Hand (or Capitola the Madcap) is a serial novel by E. D. E. N. Southworth first published in the New York Ledger in 1859, and was Southworth's most popular novel.
- Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
- 1859
The Hidden Hand is an exuberant action comedy, featuring fearless Capitola Black, a self-styled female Don Quixote, and the prototype of innumerable adventure heroines. Rescued from life on the streets in New York by a southern plantation owner, with his own reasons for befriending her, Capitola is too active and adventurous to settle for the ...
- (1.9K)
- Paperback
- New York
- THE NOCTURNAL VISIT. * * * Whence is that knocking? How is't with me when every sound appals me? * * * I hear a knocking. In the south entry! Hark!–
- THE MASKS. "What are these, So withered and so wild in their attire. That look not like th' inhabitants of earth. And yet are on't?" –MACBETH. "TO the Devil's Punch Bowl," was the order given by Old Hurricane as he followed the minister into the carriage.
- THE QUEST. Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling. And out he rode. –HUDIBRAS. PURSUANT to the orders of Major Warfield, the corpse of the old midwife was the next day after her decease brought over and quietly interred in the family graveyard of Hurricane Hall.
- CAPITOLA. Her sex a page's dress belied, Obscured her charms but could not hide. –SCOTT. "PLEASE, sir, do you want your carpet-bag carried?" asked a voice near.
The Hidden Hand. E.D.E.N. Southworth (1819 - 1899) "If you will listen to this book, you will meet a cast of unforgettable characters, as different from one another as the sun and moon. But they have one thing in common - all of them hide many, many secrets.
SectionChapterTime00:17:1500:32:3000:04:3300:08:48- Cap Black, Bowery B'hoys, and The Ideologies of Manhood
- Transgressing The Categories
- Black Donald as Double
- Performing Gender
- Bibliography
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Drawing on the working-class, popular culture image of the scrappy Bowery b'hoy—the rowdy, pugnacious young street ruffian who prowled the streets of the Bowery in Manhattan, especially during the 1840s and 1850s—Southworth challenges the complex and competing ideologies of manhood that were fermenting in mid-nineteenth-century America. The disquie...
In Capitola one sees a transgressive female survivor of boy and girl twins born on a blustery Halloween eve into a world of masks and disguises. Capitola's evil uncle, in an effort to steal his brother's (Capitola's father's) estate, murders him and arranges to kidnap Capitola's mother as she is about to give birth. The uncle's plan is to get rid o...
Of the many doubles linked with Capitola, "Cap'n" Black Donald is a worthy opponent for Cap Black as he too resorts to disguise to accommodate his evil purposes, often presenting the precise image that his victims expect to see in order to exploit them. Described as "stately," Black Donald is a towering figure standing at six feet, eight inches wit...
Role-playing defines Capitola's interaction with many of the characters in the novel and is instrumental in saving not only herself but also another of her foils, Clara Day, daughter of the good Dr. Day and the kidnapped bride-victim of Craven Le Noir, Capitola's evil uncle. Clara is the typical heroine figure that nineteenth-century readers would ...
Primary Work
Southworth, E. D. E. N. The Hidden Hand; or, Capitola theMadcap. 1859. Introduction by Nina Baym. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1997.
Secondary Works
Carpenter, Lynette. "Double Talk: The Power and Glory of Paradox in E. D. E. N. Southworth's The Hidden Hand." Legacy10, no. 1 (1993): 17–30. Dobson, Joanne. Introduction to The Hidden Hand; or, Capitola the Madcap. Edited by Joanne Dobson. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988. Foster, George. New York by Gas-light and Other UrbanSketches. Edited by Stuart Blumin. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1990. Habegger, Alfred. "A Well Hidden Hand." Novel14 (1981): 208. Huddles...
The Hidden Hand is a serialized adventure novel about Capitola Black, a cross-dressing street urchin who escapes from her evil uncle and becomes a heroine. The novel challenges the gender roles and ideologies of manhood in nineteenth-century America.
May 30, 2020 · The Hidden Hand (or Capitola the Madcap) is a serial novel by E. D. E. N. Southworth first published in the New York Ledger in 1859, and was Southworth's most popular novel.
Nov 9, 2021 · The Hidden Hand. Emma Southworth. Good Press, Nov 9, 2021 - Fiction - 445 pages. This mystery novel tells the story of Major Warfield, a veteran officer, who is the lonely proprietor of...
