World famous Southern novelist Augusta Jane Evans breaks with Yankee publisher James Spaulding in 1860 and turns her story into St. Elmo, one of the two best selling American novels of the 19th century, here adapted as both a silent film and a 1950s Southern Gothic tale: A fiercely independent young woman fends off a Byronic, self-obsessed male and pursues her own ambition despite the disapproval of society.