Vashti's Fate

About this issue

Vashti's Fate; or, Purified by Fire, by Helen Corwin Pierce (1891), published by Street & Smith in their "Select Series" (No. 78). This domestic melodrama begins with a tragedy at the country estate of Everleigh. Two young sisters—the bright, playful Lenore and the somber, graceful Vashti—are playing with their Newfoundland dog, Bute, when their brother arrives home in agitation, carrying a gun. After stumbling over the dog in his haste and kicking it, the animal attacks him. The narrative establishes a family marked by dark secrets and generational curse, suggested by chapter titles including "Justice Baffled," "Family Jars—Everleigh Traits," "The Seared Heart," and "A Grapple with Death." Subsequent chapters indicate the story involves boarding schools, romantic complications, and spiritual redemption through suffering, culminating in Vashti's purification through trial. The work exemplifies the genre of domestic fiction popular in late-Victorian popular literature.