Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 227: Irona

About this issue

Irona; or, Life on the Old South-West Border by Edward S. Ellis (1861). The serial novel opens in an aristocratic New Orleans mansion where Alfredo Seraville, a Spanish-descended merchant, meets with Colonel Charles Ovaton, a man of mixed Italian, Spanish, and American heritage. Seraville has discovered an unwanted intimacy between his daughter Irona—recently returned from European education—and Ross Welland, a wealthy young American who plans to accompany Ovaton on an expedition to Texas to establish trade with Native Americans on the Llano Estacado. Objecting to this friendship on nationalistic grounds, Seraville offers Ovaton two thousand dollars to extend his six-month Texas expedition, thus separating the young couple. Ovaton initially suggests eliminating Welland permanently; Seraville indignantly rejects this, insisting only on temporary separation and extracting Ovaton's solemn promise to protect Welland from harm.