The Simms Reader: Selections from the Writings of William Gilmore Simms

Front Cover
University of Virginia Press, 2001 - Fiction - 412 pages

Long considered a leading literary figure of the Old South, William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) wrote letters, novels, short fiction, drama, essays, and poetry in his prolific career. Born in Charleston to an old South Carolina family of modest means and raised by a grandmother with whom his father left him after his mother's death, Simms felt a simultaneous sense of loyalty to and alienation from his native region. He was a major intellectual figure on the East Coast before the Civil War but saw his New York publishers abandon him after secession, of which he was a vocal supporter.

Simms's novels and poetry have been published in modern editions, and he has been the subject of numerous biographies and critical studies, but until now there has been no collection covering the broad spectrum of his writings. The Simms Reader presents a selection of his nonnovelistic work--letters, short fiction, essays, historical writings, poetry, and epigrams--chosen and introduced by the preeminent Simms scholar John Caldwell Guilds.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Statement of Editorial Principles
36
Chronology
38
Letters
41
To James Lawson April 15 1836 43
66
To George Frederick Holmes July 15 1853
68
To Justus Starr Redfield May 4 1856
70
To James H Hammond December 8 1856
73
To William Hawkins Ferris May 27 1870
96
Indian Sketch 1828 ΙΟΙ
101
A Legend of the Old North State 1845
136
A Historical Nouvellette 1845
160
How Sharp Snaffles Got His Capital and Wife 1870
194
Notes of a Small TouristNo 10 1831
235
From A Letter to the Editor by the Author of The Loves
248
From Caloya or The Loves of the Driver in The Wigwam
268

To Orville J Victor September 1859
76
To James Lawson December 31 1860
79
To William Gilmore Simms Jr November 7 1861
80
TO Paul Hamilton Hayne September 23 1863
83
To Edward Spann Hammond November 20 1864
85
To Benjamin F Perry March 6 1865
87
To Evert A Duyckinck November 25 1869
89
To Paul Hamilton Hayne December 22 1869
91
To William Cullen Bryant April 9 1870
94
The Four Periods of American History 1845
288
From The Life of the Chevalier Bayard 1847
308
From Poetry and the Practical 1854
327
A Lecture 1856 34
340
SonnetTo My Books 1823
371
Harbor by Moonlight 1844 1845
382
Drummonds Dithyrambic 1852
395
Titles Index
411
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

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About the author (2001)

William Gilmore Simms was born in Charleston, South Carolina, April, 17 1806. His academic education was received in the school of his native city, where he was for a time a clerk in a drug and chemical house. Though his first aspirations were for medicine, he studied law at eighteen, but never practised. In 1827, he published in Charleston a volume of Lyrical and other Poems, his first attempt in literature. The following year, he became editor and partial owner of the Charleston City Gazette. In 1829 he published another volume of poems, The Vision of Cortes, and in 1830, The Tricolor. His paper proved a bad investment, and through its failure, in 1833, he was left penniless. Simms decided to devote himself to literature, and began a long series of volumes which did not end till within three years of his death.He published a poem entitled "Atalantis, a Tale of the Sea" (New York, 1832), the best and longest of all his poetic works. The Yemassee is considered his best novel, but Simms is mainly known as a writer of fiction, the scene of his novels is almost wholly southern. He was for many years a member of the legislature, and in 1846 was defeated for lieutenant-governor by only one vote. Simmd died in Charleston on June, 11 1870

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Simms Reader: Selections from the Writings of William Gilmore Simms
Publications of the Southern Texts Society
AuthorWilliam Gilmore Simms
EditorJohn Caldwell Guilds
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Virginia Press, 2001
ISBN0813920191, 9780813920191
Length412 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Fiction / Southern
Literary Collections / American / General
Literary Collections / Essays
Literary Criticism / American / General
  
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