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A collection of unusual words defined and used in context from the works of myriad authorsWhat do wierd and wonderful words such as oology and photic (used by the likes of Nabokov and Beckett, Anthony Burgess and John Fowles) actually mean?In the past you had to look in the bulkiest, most expensive dictionaries to find out. Now, in this informative and hugely entertaining book, more than 1,300 fascinating words--erotic, poetic and abusive, from abaxial to zoophiliac--are clearly defined (with examples from major writers).If you're in pursuit of fulgent logodaedaly (dazzling skill with words), you can enrich your incondite (unpolished) prose. Better still, you'll be able to impress your friends with your brilliant vocabulary without making a complete balatron of yourself!

Rife with historical details and peppered with comic characters, The Golden Christmas remains a timeless tale of South Carolina's rich holiday heritage. Originally published in 1852, William Gilmore Simms's classic lowcountry romance chronicles the social customs and Christmas traditions of an antebellum plantation near Charleston. Drawing influence from Romeo and Juliet and A Christmas Carol, Simms centers his plot on the pride of a Huguenot family, the prejudice of an English family, and the plight of star-crossed lovers, Ned Bulmer and Paula Bonneau, to win the blessings of both feuding houses amid a festive and frantic holiday season. Simms populates his novel with a lively cast--a learned Northern professor, a young English nobleman, opinionated widows, a blustery plantation owner, a condescending servant, a pig-thieving coachman, and a good-hearted barrister. Interwoven into the text are engrossing details about the lavish decorations and festivities that were the hallmark of Christmas celebrations in the antebellum South. Vibrant fireworks, candles nestled in holly, games of whist and backgammon, Yule logs, eggnog, and a visit from Father Chrystmasse all play their parts as the narrative unfolds. Here, too, are accurate descriptions of dress, dialogue, recreation, cultural mores, social hierarchy, and a vivid tableau of a shopping trip to Charleston's King, Queen, and Meeting streets in the 1850s. Equal parts novel of manners and comic romance, The Golden Christmas is now, as it has always been, a holiday gift to lovers of Southern lore from South Carolina's most famous author.

An examination of the powerful role human agency and rhetoric played in the founding of the nationHistory tells us that on a day when the forces of civil government confront the forces of military might, no one knows what may follow. Americans believe that they have avoided this moment, that whatever other challengesthe country has faced, at least it never has had to deal with the prospects of a coup d'état. Stephen Howard Browne maintains that this view is mistaken, that in fact the United States faced such a crisis, at the very moment when thecountry announced its arrival on the world scene in the spring of 1783 in a rustic meeting hall along the Hudson River near Newburgh, New York. The crisis was resolved by George Washington, commander in chief of the U.S. Army, in an address he delivered to a roomful of restive and deeply disaffected officers.In The Ides of War, Browne examines the resolution of the first confrontation between the forces of American civil government and the American military--the Newburgh Crisis. He tells the story of what transpired on that day, examines what was said, and suggests what we might learn from the affair. Browne shows that George Washington's Newburgh Address is a stunning example of the power of human agency to broker one of our most persistent, mosttroublesome dilemmas: the rival claims to power of civil and military authorities. At stake in this story are biding questions about the meaning and legacy of revolution, the nature of republican government, and ultimately what kind of people we are and profess to be.Browne holds that although these are monolithic and vexed themes, they are vital and need to be confronted to obtain a coherent and convincing account of history. The Newburgh Crisis offers an unmatched opportunity to examine these themes, as well as the role of rhetoric in the founding of the world's first modern republic.

This unique collection of Charleston memories and receipts is drawn from Rose P. Ravenel (1850-1943), daughter of a Huguenot planter, merchant, and ship owner, who kept notebooks throughout her life with stories of the Carolina Lowcountry as well as accounts of her family. During her lifetime Ravenel collected more than two hundred receipts from Charleston ladies of her acquaintance. Editor Elizabeth Ravenel Harrigan, great-niece of Rose P. Ravenel, has put together a selection from her ancestor's notebooks to re-create twelve delicious Charlestonian meals and to capture memories of Charleston before and after the Civil War. Also included are drawings by Ravenel and her friend Lisa Huger Smith.

An in-depth examination of the biblical figureThe story of a universal deluge, from which a few persons survived in order to repopulate the earth, is found in literature around the world. The most famous account is that of the Bible, concerned with the survival of Noah's family by means of an ark. Within the last century, a number of explanations for the flood have been proposed, as well as evidence for its historicity--archaeological remains, geological deposits, eyewitness accounts, photographs of the remnants of the ark, and wood brought down from a spectacular mountain in eastern Turkey.

Martin Faber and Other Tales includes the novella Martin Faber, as well as nine other short stories and a poem. This publication marks a significant branching out for Simms--up until this point he had published almost exclusively poetry, and this is his foray into a new genre that would become his life's work. Following this, Simms became primarily a fiction writer.Reviewers tended to find Martin Faber representative of a promising new voice in American letters. The stories collected with the title novella exhibit concerns with American history, the fantastic, and the romantic. A Passage of Arms in '76 is one of Simms's earliest pieces of Revolutionary War fiction, and briefly explores an aspect of Charleston's experience with that conflict. Other stories, like The Plank and Juan Ponce de Leon, elicit Simms's interest in how other aspects of history serve as the material for imaginative literature, exploring how American history and national development was shaped not only by English colonization, but also by Spanish explorers and the effects of piracy. Martin Faber itself exists as a precursor to the southern gothic mode, and the influence of German Romanticism on Simms's work is seen in tales like Sweet William and The Spirit Bridegroom. Martin Faber and Other Tales closes with a poem, suggesting that while Simms may have come to see the novel as his primary genre, he would never abandon his first love. Here, then, we have a collection that presents the most significant moves of Simms's overall literary project in miniature.

The Federal Writers Project creates an image of South Carolina of years pastAll of us, at one time or another, have had a strong desire to be able to get into a time machine and be transported magically to an earlier place and time. Science has not yet produced for us such a time machine, but the Federal Writers Project (FWP), a division of the Works Progress Administration, did produce for prosperity guides to all of the old 48 states. Using talented local researchers and writers the FWP created an image of America fifty plus years ago.A reprint of the original, South Carolina: The WPA Guide to the Palmetto State is divided into three sections: 19 essays on a variety of topics ranging from history to cookery; detailed descriptions of the 11 towns in the state that had populations of more than 10,000; and 21 remarkably detailed guided tours to all sections of the state. In addition to the original chapters, there are two appendices--updated highway numbers for each tour and a guide to getting off the present Interstate Highway System and picking up the guided tours.South Carolina's Guide is very much a product of its times. The essays and tours mince no words in describing the state's poverty or the reality of a world in which class and race played major roles. For those who have studied and taught South Carolina history, the old Guide has been an indispensable reference work. Parts of it may be dated to some jaded modern eyes; some phrases may be jarring to the post-1954 generation. However, the original South Carolina: The WPA Guide to the Palmetto State was what its cover claimed it to be. It accurately described the state as it was--not as romantics wanted it to be.

Women rabbis relfect on their changing role in the professionIn this anthology by and about Jewish women, fifteen British rabbis discuss the changing role of Jewish clergywomen in the six decades since the private ordination of Regina Jonas, the first woman rabbi. Through personal testimony and scholarly inquiry, they take note of the legacy of their foremothers and grapple with what it means to be a Jewish woman on the eve of the twenty-first century.The contributors profile women who led the struggle for recognition and respect in the Jewish world. They also recount their own stories, vividly describing the reasons they chose to enter the rabbinate and the challenges they face in the profession.Delving into the interpretive process from which women have traditionally been excluded, the rabbis examine female role models found in the Hebrew Bible, biblical prophecy and the feminist vision, the authorship of the Song of Songs, and the matter of canonicity from a feminist perspective. They consider such questions as why Judaism has no sayings of the mothers and assess contemporary gender issues including Jewish feminist theology, inclusive language, segregated seating in synagogue, and the whole issue of the feminine in Judaism.Important for Jews and for feminists in general, Hear Our Voice examines issues of significance for Christians as well, with some of the essays addressing the role of women in the Christian faith.

The Life of Francis Marion is a biography of the legendary Swamp Fox of the American Revolution. Simms's goal in writing the biography was to show Marion as a Washington-like figure who should be understood as exemplifying the best, foundational aspects of the national character, as well as to push back against the two earlier biographical treatments of Marion, by Mason Locke Weems and William Dobein James. In this text, he writes with a combination of artistry and historical accuracy in portaying this lengendary patriotic figure.

The Army Correspondence of Colonel John Laurens is a collection which displays Simms's efforts of documentary editing in the vein of a similar project he published the prior year, Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond. The Army Correspondence consists of letters John Laurens wrote to his father, Henry, between the years of 1777 and 1778 during his service with the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War. The volume also features an introductory memoir by Simms and an elegiac poem by Philip Freneau. While writing these letters, Laurens was serving as a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp to George Washington; his father was serving as the fifth president of the Continental Congress. Simms's hagiographic memoir praises Lauren's gallant virtues, highlighting an American patriot.

Understanding Contemporary American Literature was planned as a series of guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers. The word understanding in the series titles was deliberately chosen. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works: that is, what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed. These volumes provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers--identifying and explicating their material, themes, use of language, point of view, structures, symbolism, and responses to experience.

Understanding Contemporary American Literature was planned as a series of guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers. The word understanding in the series titles was deliberately chosen. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works: that is, what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed. These volumes provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers--identifying and explicating their material, themes, use of language, point of view, structures, symbolism, and responses to experience.

Stories and Tales is Volume V of the University of South Carolina's Centennial Edition of the writings of William Gilmore Simms. This volume contains fifteen stories and tales, chronologically presented, collecting writings from all phases of Simms's career. Stories collected in the Centennial Edition of Stories and Tales are drawn from several magazines, journals, and even one-off printings, as well as from four of Simms's published collections of short fiction. Importantly, none of the stories collected here were included in The Wigwam and the Cabin, a short story collection by Simms. John Caldwell Guilds, the editor of this volume, gathers together many of Simms's lesser-known works in order to call attention to their real significance. Further, Stories and Tales samples from the two broad divisions into which Simms placed his stories: domestic tales or tales of the South, those that have a strong realism and impulse towards specificity in subject matter, and tales of the imagination, more philosophical or fantastical stories, often influenced by European, and particularly German, romanticism. Of particular note are the final three stories in this volume, How Sharp Snaffles Got His Capital and Wife, Bald-Head Bill Bauldy, and The Humours of the Manager, all of which reveal Simms's talents as a writer of humor and are published here for the first time.Several of the pieces published in this collection are noteworthy for their interesting textual history. Included in Stories and Tales is Confessions of a Murderer, a story first published in the Southern Literary Gazette, and later expanded into Martin Faber. This novella was later published in book form as the title story in Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal; and Other Tales. Stories and Tales presents the 1833 edition of Martin Faber, with extensive explanatory notes showing the differences between it and the 1837 version. Thus, the reader is here presented with the complete textual history of one of Simms's seminal early works. The Prima Donna was originally published in pamphlet form in 1844 by Louis A. Godey of Philadelphia and is republished for the first time in Stories and Tales. The Bride of Hate, originally published under the title The Passage of the Night, in Godey's Lady's Book in 1841, was reworked and retitled for inclusion in Southward, Ho! The latter version is presented here, with explanatory notes that thoroughly illustrate the differences between the two versions.

Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond compiles papers from this South Carolina congressman, governor, and senator.

The History of South Carolina strives to educate South Carolinian youth in the vibrant history of the state and the distinguished accomplishments of its leaders. In this book, Simms provides an historical account of South Carolina and notable South Carolinians. Across the various editions, Simms's book presents two main lessons to its readers: first, that South Carolinians should depend on native leadership in times of crisis, and second, that a united front against external threats is necessary at all times. While The History paints a broad picture of the European settlement of South Carolina, the Revolution figures as the most prominent, and most lengthy, section in all three editions. In Simms's presentation, the American Revolution is the central and transformative moment of South Carolina's history.

The Geography of South Carolina, published in 1843, is a companion piece for the edition of The History of South Carolina that came out the previous year. The separation of Simms's subject into two volumes allowed him to simplify it, in order to make the books more approachable for younger readers. Simms's purpose in writing The Geography was educational, much like its companion piece. Simms sought to provide the children of South Carolina with an understanding of their state, its history, people, culture, and resources. Simms's desire to see The Geography of South Carolina used as an educational tool is further evidenced by his inclusion of study and review questions in the book's final appendix.The Geography of South Carolina draws heavily upon the work of Robert Mills. However, unlike Mills's important atlas, Simms's book is not merely a presentation of the physical features of the state and its places. Rather, The Geography of South Carolina is more like a text about natural history, describing the natural and physical featurs of the state, as well its population and their achievements.

One of the major American cities of the mid-19th century, Charleston was viewed by its citizens as a hub of culture and erudition equal to that of the other great cities of the time, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. To illustrate the quality of the city's intellectual life and literary merits, Samuel Hart suggested that Charlestonians should compile an anthology of writings by city residents, much as several other cities had done throughout the late 1830s. Simms, the leading literary figure of Charleston, and one of the nation's most widely-read and celebrated authors, was an easy choice for the project's editor. The book is an important document of the vibrant literary scene of mid-century Charleston, one which reveals much about Simms's understanding of the relationship of his home city and region to the overall intellectual life of the nation. The Charleston Book: A Miscellany in Prose and Verse contains writings from many members of Simms's social and intellectual circle, including all three Carroll brothers, Charles Fraser, and transplanted New Englanders Samuel and Caroline Gilman, both of whom were widely published authors in their lifetimes. Simms gathered together some of the most important living writers in Charleston. Importantly, Simms did not include any of his own writings inThe Charleston Book, either. Simms, ever balancing his ardent sectional loyalties with his nationalist impulses, seemed to edit this volume with a singular purpose in mind: to show that Charleston not only had been, but continued to be, instrumental in defining the national artistic consciousness and that its talents were not limited to a select few voices.

Understanding Contemporary American Literature was planned as a series of guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers. The word understanding in the series titles was deliberately chosen. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works: that is, what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed. These volumes provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers--identifying and explicating their material, themes, use of language, point of view, structures, symbolism, and responses to experience.

At the forefront of a new era in American history, Briggs v. Elliott was one of the first five school segregation lawsuits argued consecutively before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952. The resulting collective 1954 landmark decision, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, struck down legalized segregation in American public schools. The genesis of Briggs was in 1947, when the black community of Clarendon County, South Carolina, took action against the abysmally poor educational opportunities provided for their children. In a move that would define him as an early-although unsung-champion for civil rights justice, Joseph A. De Laine, a pastor and school principal, led his neighbors to challenge South Carolina's "e;separate but equal"e; practice of racial segregation in public schools. Their lawsuit, Briggs, provided the impetus that led to Brown.In this engrossing memoir, Ophelia De Laine Gona, the daughter of Reverend De Laine, becomes the first to cite and credit adequately the forces responsible for filing Briggs. Based on De Laine's writings and papers, witness testimonies, and the author's personal knowledge, Gona's account fills a gap in civil rights history by providing a poignant insider's view of the events and personalities-including NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall and federal district judge J. Waties Waring-central to this trailblazing case.Though De Laine and the brave parents who filed Briggs v. Elliott initially lost their lawsuit in district court, the case grew in significance when the plaintiffs appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Three years after the appeal, the Briggs case was one of the five lawsuits that shared the historic Brown decision. However, the ruling did not prevent De Laine and his family from suffering vicious reprisals from vindictive white citizens. In 1955, after he was shot at and his church was burned to the ground, De Laine prudently fled South Carolina in order to save his life. He died in exile in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1974. Fifty years after the Supreme Court's decision, De Laine was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of his role in reshaping the American educational landscape.Those interested in justice, human rights, and leadership, as well as in the civil rights movement and South Carolina social history, will be fascinated by this inspiring tale of how one man's unassailable moral character, raw courage, and steely fortitude inspired a group of humble people to become instruments of change and set in motion a corrective force that revolutionized the laws and social practices of a nation.

The American Revolution is most often identified by the famous battles in the northern states, but roughly eighty percent of the war was fought in the South. The Partisan War examines the details of the southern campaign of the Continental army from 1780 to 1782 under the command of General Nathanael Greene, who employed the support of South Carolina backcountry men who often engaged in "partisan warfare"--what later generations would refer to as irregular or guerilla tactics. In this concise volume, author Russell F. Weigley traces the course of the war in South Carolina from the fall of Charleston in 1780, to the Battle of Eutaw Springs and the end of effective British military operations in the South Carolina interior in 1781, and finally to the British surrender and evacuation of Charleston in 1782. Along the way Weigley also details the battles of Camden, King's Mountain, and Cowpens, as well as many of the small engagements and skirmishes that comprised much of the war in the South. He also introduces readers to famed partisan leaders Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion. Readers will emerge with a clearer sense of the significance of South Carolina's role in the American Revolution and the intensity of the fighting that took place there.

The destruction and rebuilding of southern society as witnessed from the homefrontAt the age of nineteen Pauline DeCaradeuc Heyward began keeping a journal in which she recorded the final years of the Civil War, including the destruction of her plantation home near Aiken, South Carolina; the hardship of the Reconstruction era; her marriage into a distinguished Charleston family; and her efforts to provide for her large family after her husband's death. A fascinating document that spans a traumatic quarter of a century, Heyward's diary offers intimate insights into the deprivation and devastation suffered by southern women during and after the Civil War.

Ralph McGill (1898-1969) was the editor in chief of the Atlanta Constitution during the turbulent years of the civil rights movement that followed Brown v. Board of Education, and he became an outspoken advocate for integration and racial tolerance in the South. In this Southern Classics edition, Angie Maxwell offers a new critical introduction that analyzes McGill's as an activist and advocate for social change.The editorials that compose A Church, a School marked McGill's emergence as a prolific advocate of nonviolence and social responsibility and evidenced the progressive values of the Constitution. A Church, a School contains twenty-nine editorials that elucidate the historical record of liberal Southern participation in the civil rights movement. This is not a record of what happened in the South in the late 1950s; rather it is a map of the intellectual and psychological terrain that liberal journalists, such as McGill, traveled and the obstacles they encountered.

An unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture,class, identity, and the meaning of freedomPrisons, the first volume of The Beulah Quintet-Mary Lee Settle's unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture, classs, and identity and the meaning of fredom-follows the coming-of-age of Johnny Church from English youngster to dashing Oxford adolescent to idealistic Puritan in the service of Cromwell's Parliamentary Army. Throughout his evolution, Johnny seeks emancipation from a multitude of emotional, political, and religious prisons, not realizing that with each successive grasp at freedom, he escapes one form of captivity only to be confined by another.When Cromwell, the leader Johnny has supported so staunchly, limits the freedoms for which Johnny has taken up arms, he bravely questions the commander. Shortly thereafter he finds himself in a prison of stone and mortar where, as an example to other soldiers tempted to champion their rights, he is executed. Based on a true incident of the English Civil War, Prisons captures the promise and tragedy of the conflict that led to one of the first substantial migrations to North America and lays the foundation for the next chapter in Settle's riveting saga-O Beulah Land.

Understanding Eudora Welty provides close readings of Welty's novels and short stories and the memoir One Writer's Beginnings. Michael Kreyling sifts through contemporary reviews and recent criticism in arriving at his assessment. Noting that Welty's work has been before the public and in the minds of literary critics for nearly a half century, he suggests that understanding the critical history of her canon is almost as important as understanding the works themselves.Kreyling describes the New Critics' explanation of Welty's fiction, which was based on their preference for the unity of meaning in a well-made work of art. Kreyling also traces the mounting interest of feminist critics in Welty's work after the publication in 1984 of One Writer's Beginnings. He credits feminist critics with providing some of the most refreshing appraisals of her writings in more than a generation.As he considers the many assessments and reassessments of Welty's work, Kreyling uncovers and discusses the myriad identities that critics have attached to her--that of southern writer, southern gothicist, "Southern Renaissance" writer, modernist, and feminist. Questioning the sufficiency of any single label, Kreyling suggests that Welty never wrote to a formula and never wrote the same story twice. Kreyling maps the dynamic growth Welty exhibited in the depth and complexity of her vision and literary technique over the course of her career.

Illumines a unique fusion of African and Western European religious traditions"Ain't Gonna Lay My 'Ligion Down" reveals the ways that African Americans have "put flesh on their Christian beliefs," adapting the faith of their European American masters and creating distinctive forms of religious expression. Contributors to the volume examine specific examples of African American religious practice and church leadership to show the remarkable degree to which newly imported slaves preserved their African spiritual heritage while simultaneously meshing it with Western symbols and theological claims.The first essay in the volume explains the historical implications and continuing significance of two distinctive, often misunderstood components of African American folk religion: the pray's house spirit and the distinctive conversion ritual known as seekin' the Lord. Other essays consider the morality of African American folktales, specifically the Brer Rabbit tales; the symbolic and literary connections between African traditional religions and the religious experiences of African American women as found in the "motherwit" tradition; and the central place "rhythm" holds in African American life as a thread of continuity connecting life in Africa with life in the diaspora. Two final essays explore African American folk religion by examining the contributions of prominent nineteenth- and twentieth-century church leaders.

Art and Craft presents the hand-picked fruit of Bill Thompson's three decades covering writers and writing as book review editor of Charleston, South Carolina's Post and Courier. Beginning with a foreword by Charleston novelist Josephine Humphreys, this collection is a compendium of interviews featuring some of the most distinguished novelists and nonfiction writers in America and abroad, including Tom Wolfe, Pat Conroy, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Bragg, and Anthony Bourdain, as well as many South Carolinians. With ten thematic chapters ranging from the Southern Renaissance, literature, biography, and travel writing to crime fiction and Civil War history, Art and Craft also includes a sampling of Thompson's reviews.A foreword is written by South Carolina novelist Josephine Humphreys, who is author of Dreams of Sleep (winner of the 1985 Ernest Hemingway Award for First Fiction), Rich in Love (made into a major motion picture), The Fireman's Fair, and Nowhere Else on Earth.Featuring: Jack Bass, Rick Bragg, Roy Blount, Jr., Robin Cook, Pat Conroy, Patricia Cornwell, Dorothea Benton Frank, Herb Frazier, Sue Grafton, Carl Hiaasen, Sue Monk Kidd, Brian Lamb, Bret Lott, Jill McCorkle, James McPherson, Mary Alice Monroe, Joyce Carol Oates, Carl Reiner, Dori Sanders, Charles Seabrook, Anne Rivers Siddons, Lee Smith, Mickey Spillane, Paul Theroux, Tom Wolfe

Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War chronicles the lives and concerns of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore families of piedmont South Carolina during the late-antebellum and Civil War eras through 124 letters dated 1853 to 1865. The letters provide valuable firsthand accounts of evolving attitudes toward the war as conveyed between battlefronts and the home front, and they also express rich details about daily life in both environments.As the men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks and write from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas, they describe combat in some of the war's more significant battles. Though the surviving combatants remain staunch patriots to the Southern cause until the bitter end, in their letters readers witness the waning of initial enthusiasm in the face of the realities of combat. The corresponding letters from the home front offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through its conclusion.

Building out of his early experiences with writing in the psychological gothic mode in such texts as Martin Faber (1833) and Carl Werner (1838) and anticipating his later work Castle Dismal (1844), William Gilmore Simms published Confession; or, The Blind Heart in 1841. This novel is the extended confession of Edward Clifford who is orphaned at a young age and sent to be reared by his aunt and uncle in Charleston. Rising above his foster parents' scorn, Clifford becomes a lawyer, a prominent citizen, and a husband to his cousin, Julia. His turbulent childhood leaves him emotionally scarred and suspicious of human relationships, though, and thus he becomes increasingly jealous of his wife's friendship with his boyhood companion, William Edgerton. After failing to ease his paranoia by moving his family west to Alabama, Clifford poisons his wife and challenges Edgerton to a duel. Edgerton, however, commits suicide first. Thanks to posthumous letters from both Julia and Edgerton, Clifford realizes his mistaken assumptions and, at the end of the novel, wanders further west into untamed Texas in search of absolution. Confession; or, The Blind Heart marks an early, well-written study of domestic battery in American literature. Confession occupies an interesting space in the overlap between Simms's Border Romances and gothic narratives because of its elements of westward progression as well as psychological examinations.

First published in 2002 by the South Carolina Historical Society, Dark Hours was the second of two landmark Civil War research projects carried out by Randolph W. Kirkland, Jr. The companion volume on South Carolinians killed in military service, Broken Fortunes, was published in 1995. Highly prized by collectors and historians, both of Kirkland's monumental projects have now been restored to print as Civil War Sesquicentennial Editions by the University of South Carolina Press. Representing more than fifteen years of research drawn from some two hundred different sources, Kirkland's Dark Hours is a compendium of the 11,238 South Carolinians held in captivity as a result of their service to the Confederacy. Kirkland's list includes the individuals' names, ranks, units, where and when they were captured, where they were held, when they were moved, their final dispositions, and sources to assist researchers. This volume is the most complete record ever published of South Carolinians held in Union captivity during the Civil War. In his introduction Kirkland provides meticulous details and background information to the circumstances, implications, and nuances of the federal prison system during the war. He also includes appendixes outlining source codes and abbreviations for place names and ranks along with extracts from official documents concerning prisoners of war.

In the first reissue of these documents since 1865, A City Laid Waste captures in riveting detail the destruction of South Carolina's capital city. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), a native South Carolinian and one of the nation's foremost men of letters, was in Columbia and witnessed firsthand the city's capture and destruction. A renowned novelist and poet, who was also an experienced journalist and historian, Simms deftly recorded the events of February 1865 in a series of eyewitness accounts published in the first ten issues of the Columbia Phoenix and reprinted here. His record of burned buildings constitutes the most authoritative information available on the extent of the damage. Simms historian David Aiken provides a historical and literary context for Simms's reportage. In his introduction Aiken clarifies the significance of Simms's articles and draws attention to factors most important for understanding the occupation's impact on the city of Columbia.