Rutledge

Rutledge was the first novel of Miriam Coles Harris. released in 1860. It has been described as the first "fully-American Gothic novel." The narrator is an orphaned teenager whose aunt sends her to live with her new guardian, Arthur Rutledge, in his ancestral home. As in the case of Jane Eyre before it, and Rebecca some eighty years later, the mansion holds a dark secret. She falls in love with Rutledge, but misunderstandings and jealousy lead her to behave antagonistically, becoming engaged to a young man with serious emotional problems and a horrible past. The author had written several chapters before she realized that she had not given a name to the heroine. Then it occurred to her that if she could finish the book without supplying a name, the idea would be unique.