
An Early and Strong Sympathy
The Indian Writings of William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms(Author)
University of South Carolina Press
Will be published approx. on 30. June 2002
Book
Hardback
640 pages
978-1-57003-441-1 (ISBN)
Description
Literary writings that reveal nineteenth-century perceptions of Native Americans; Novelist William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) and the Indians who lived in the southeast United States during the nineteenth century have shared a similar and unfortunate fate - both have been largely neglected in mainstream scholarship of literature and ethnohistory. In a volume that remedies this oversight, John Caldwell Guilds, an authority on Simms, and Charles Hudson, an authority on Southeastern Indians, collaborate to reveal fresh perspectives on both. They offer an anthology of Simms's writings that establishes him as a knowledgeable, prolific, and sympathetic portrayer of Native Americans in fiction and poetry. This groundbreaking anthology identifies more than one hundred works by Simms on Indians, including his best and most representative writings, some of which have never before been published. The passages range from romantic, poetic fantasies to attentive descriptions that are valuable primary resources for historians and anthropologists. Written from Simms's youth in the 1820s until his death in 1870, the selections document the transformation of the South from a frontier where Indians, African Americans, and white southerners confronted each other as strangers, to a prosperous agricultural society built on the exploitation of subservient peoples, and finally, to an impoverished tri-racial community that labored to meet a post-Civil War world. In their commentary Guilds and Hudson make the case for the literary, if not always the ethnological, value of Simms's life-long efforts to dramatize the character, culture, and artistry of the American Indian. The editors emphasize the significance of Simms's depictions of Native Americans not only as an integral part of American history but also as an added dimension to the literature of the south and the nation.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
South Carolina
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
2 halftones, 1 line art
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 46 mm
Weight
1068 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-57003-441-1 (9781570034411)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
The most widely published scholar and editor of Simms, John Caldwell Guilds has devoted more than four decades to the study of Simms and his works. Author of the prize-winning biography Simms: A Literary Life and editor of Selected Fiction of William Gilmore Simms: Arkansas Edition, Guilds holds the Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities at the University of Arkansas. Guilds lives on Cartwright Mountain in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas. Charles Hudson, retired as the Franklin Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia, is the author of, among other works, The Southeastern Indians and Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms. Hudson is also the editor of The Ethnology of the Southeastern Indians: A Source Book. Hudson resides in Athens, Georgia.