Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny: Nonsuch Classics

A scathing attack on the idea of American Puritanism and the doctrine of Original Sin, Elsie Venner is the story of a young woman who, having been poisoned by rattlesnake venom while in the womb, emerges into the world half human, half snake. An intelligent and wealthy heiress, she repulses and fascinates those around her in equal measure. She falls in love with a young doctor, but her serpentine characteristics prevent him from returning her affection; her cousin is attracted by her money and, wrongly perceiving the doctor as his rival, determines upon his downfall.

First published in 1861, this is a wonderfully inventive novel that meticulously dissects for the reader the social mores of small-town America in the middle of the nineteenth century, as viewed through the prism of Olive Wendell Holmes' powerful imagination.