Born into poverty and orphaned at his mother's death, young Ishmael enters the world with nothing but a burning resolve: to honor the name of the mother he never knew. In the swamps and pine barrens of rural Maryland, on the eve of the Civil War, he scrapes together an education in law while the world conspires to keep him down. This is a story of almost impossible ascent, a man clawing his way from a hut in the depths to the corridors of power, driven by integrity and an almost stubborn love of virtue. But the world of Brudenell Hall, with its heirs and its secrets, is not done with Ishmael yet. Romantic entanglements, class warfare, and the weight of buried family history will test whether a poor man's word is worth anything in a society built on wealth and blood. E.D.E.N. Southworth, the most widely read American novelist of her day, delivers a tale of relentless ambition, hard-won triumph, and the question that haunts every self-made man: can you ever truly escape where you came from? The drama continues in Self Raised, but this is where it all begins.
