 First edition | |
| Author | Davis Grubb |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Richard Powers |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical |
| Publisher | Scribners |
Publication date | 1955 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 357 |
| LC Class | PZ4.G884 Dr PS3513.R865 |
A Dream of Kings is a novel written by American author Davis Grubb, published in 1955. The novel describes the life of Tom Christopher during the American Civil War in Virginia.
The novel is set in Virginia, which then becomes West Virginia, and on American Civil War battlefields between 1855 and 1864. Tom Christopher lives with his Aunt Sarah, and another girl his aunt has taken in, Catherine Ellen Hornbrook, or just Cathi as she is called. Her father Abijah Hornbrook, never appears in the novel, but his presence is felt. The "dream of kings" is the Confederacy. "A storm is gathering upon our land and when it has passed [Abija Hornbrook writes to his daughter] you may see a new nation upon this continent and you will know that I have helped to form it....a time of kings....Yes, this nation shall belong to the gentlemen who founded it. [1] When the war comes Tom fights under the command of Stonewall Jackson. When Jackson dies, Tom deserts, and goes back to West Virginia. Once there he falls in love with Cathi.
Time had a favorable opinion upon the novel: "Novelist Grubb...has now attempted what might have been a commonplace story...but...he writes with such emotional conviction and lyric intensity that the book emerges as an authentic and haunting experience." [2]
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a Confederate general and military officer who served during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the Eastern theater of the war until his death. Military historians regard him as one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.
The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most often arrayed against the Union Army of the Potomac.
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
Richard Harding Davis was an American journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish–American War, the Second Boer War, and World War I. His writing greatly assisted the political career of Theodore Roosevelt. He also played a major role in the evolution of the American magazine. His influence extended to the world of fashion, and he is credited with making the clean-shaven look popular among men at the turn of the 20th century.
Andrew Stevenson was an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. He represented Richmond, Virginia in the Virginia House of Delegates and eventually became its speaker before being elected to the United States House of Representatives; its members subsequently elected him their Speaker. Stevenson also served in the Jackson administration for four years as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom before retiring to his slave plantation in Albemarle County. He also served on the board of visitors of the University of Virginia and briefly as its rector before his death.
The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900 is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy, and was followed by The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), and The Traitor: A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire (1907). In the novel, published in 1902, Dixon offers an account of Reconstruction in which he portrays a Reconstruction leader, Northern carpetbaggers, and emancipated slaves as the villains; Ku Klux Klan members are anti-heroes. While the playbills and program for The Birth of a Nation claimed The Leopard's Spots as a source in addition to The Clansman, recent scholars do not accept this.
The Accursed Kings is a series of historical novels by French author Maurice Druon about the French monarchy in the 14th century. Published between 1955 and 1977, the series has been adapted as a miniseries twice for television in France.
Douglas Southall Freeman was an American historian, biographer, newspaper editor, radio commentator, and author. He is best known for his multi-volume biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington, for both of which he was awarded Pulitzer Prizes.
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy is an American pseudohistorical and historical negationist myth that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First enunciated in 1866, it has continued to influence racism, gender roles, and religious attitudes in the Southern United States into the 21st century. Historians have dismantled many parts of the Lost Cause mythos.
Christopher Gustavus Memminger was a German-born American politician and a secessionist who participated in the formation of the Confederate States government. He was the principal author of the Provisional Constitution (1861), as well as the founder of the Confederate financial system. As the first Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury, Memminger was the principal author of the economic policies of Jefferson Davis's administration.
Across the River and Into the Trees is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1950, after first being serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine earlier that year. The title is derived from the last words of U.S. Civil War Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
Davis Alexander Grubb was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for his 1953 novel The Night of the Hunter, which was adapted as a film in 1955 by Charles Laughton.
Harry Peter McNab Brown Jr. was an American poet, novelist and screenwriter.
Maxwell Struthers Burt, was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer.
American literary regionalism, often used interchangeably with the term "local color", is a style or genre of writing in the United States that gained popularity in the mid-to-late 19th century and early 20th century. In this style of writing, which includes both poetry and prose, the setting is particularly important and writers often emphasize specific features, such as dialect, customs, history and landscape, of a particular region, often one that is "rural and/or provincial". Regionalism is influenced by both 19th-century realism and Romanticism, adhering to a fidelity of description in the narrative but also infusing the tale with exotic or unfamiliar customs, objects, and people.
Events from the year 1863 in the United States.
The Voices of Glory is a 1962 novel by American author Davis Grubb.
The Watchman is a 1961 novel by American author Davis Grubb.
A Tree Full of Stars is a 1965 novel by American author Davis Grubb.
Hornbrook is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
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