 First editions | |
| Author | William Gilmore Simms |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
Publication date | April 1835 |
| Pages | Two vol. (1835 ed.) |
The Yemassee: A Romance of Carolina is an 1835 historical novel by American writer William Gilmore Simms. It was a popular bestseller during its time and became Simms's best known novel. [1] [2]
Simms had recently published his book Guy Rivers and its success convinced him that writings on American themes could be effective. His first reference to the book that became The Yemassee came in a letter dated July 19, 1834, in which he wrote that he was "digesting the plan of an Indian tale—a story of an early settlement and of an old tribe in Carolina". [3]
Influenced by the historical romances by Sir Walter Scott, the book's plot is set in the low country of South Carolina before and during the Yemassee War in 1715-1717. It was released in April 1835 to positive critical reviews. [4] The New York Times, for example, wrote of the reviewer's "extreme delight" in the book which "permanently established" a reputation for the author. [5] The Baltimore American wrote that the book put Simms "among the first class of modern novelists". [6]
Yemassee is a small Lowcountry town in Beaufort and Hampton counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 1,027 at the 2010 census. Yemassee is near the borders of Colleton and Jasper counties. The town is divided by the county line between Beaufort and Hampton counties, which follows the roadbed of the CSX railroad. Most of the town's population presently lies within Hampton County. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Beaufort County portion of Yemassee is included within the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Yemassee hosts one of the few commercial breeding facilities of non-human primates in the entire United States, Alpha Genesis, Inc., which serves as a major employer for the town. Also, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Auldbrass Plantation house and outbuildings lie just outside the town limits of Yemassee.
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native American tribes.
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth was an American writer of more than 60 novels in the latter part of the 19th century. She was the most popular American novelist of her day.
Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933) won him critical acclaim.
Yemassee may refer to:
Charles Fenno Hoffman was an American author, poet and editor associated with the Knickerbocker Group in New York.
William Gilmore Simms was an American writer and politician from the American South who was a "staunch defender" of slavery. A poet, novelist, and historian, his History of South Carolina served as the definitive textbook on state history for much of the 20th century. Literary scholars consider him a major force in antebellum Southern literature; in 1845 Edgar Allan Poe pronounced him the best novelist America had ever produced. Throughout much of his literary career he served as editor of several journals and newspapers. He also served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1844–1846.
Southern United States literature consists of American literature written about the Southern United States or by writers from the region. Literature written about the American South first began during the colonial era, and developed significantly during and after the period of slavery in the United States. Traditional historiography of Southern United States literature emphasized a unifying history of the region; the significance of family in the South's culture, a sense of community and the role of the individual, justice, the dominance of Christianity and the positive and negative impacts of religion, racial tensions, social class and the usage of local dialects. However, in recent decades, the scholarship of the New Southern Studies has decentralized these conventional tropes in favor of a more geographically, politically, and ideologically expansive "South" or "Souths".
Anti-Tom literature consists of the 19th century pro-slavery novels and other literary works written in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Also called plantation literature, these writings were generally written by authors from the Southern United States. Books in the genre attempted to show that slavery was beneficial to African Americans and that the evils of slavery as depicted in Stowe's book were overblown and incorrect.
The Yamasees were a multiethnic confederation of Native Americans who lived in the coastal region of present-day northern coastal Georgia near the Savannah River and later in northeastern Florida. The Yamasees engaged in revolts and wars with other native groups and Europeans living in North America, specifically from Florida to North Carolina.
James Henry Hammond was an attorney, politician, and planter from South Carolina. He served as a United States representative from 1835 to 1836, the 60th Governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844, and a United States senator from 1857 to 1860. A slave owner, he is considered one of the strongest supporters of slavery in the years before the American Civil War.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Charles Craven was the son of Sir William Craven and Margaret Clapham. He held the office of Governor of Carolina between 1711 and 1716.
Yamasee, Yemassee or Yamassee could refer to:
Julie Madison Suk is an American prize-winning poet and writer from Charlotte, North Carolina. She is the author of six volumes of poetry - The Medicine Woman, Heartwood, The Angel of Obsession, The Dark Takes Aim, Lie Down With Me, and Astonished To Wake, and co-editor of Bear Crossings: an Anthology of North American Poets. She is included in The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including The Georgia Review, Great River Review, The Laurel Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Shenandoah, and TriQuarterly.
The literature of South Carolina, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Representative authors include Dorothy Allison, Daniel Payne and William Gilmore Simms.
The type of romance considered here is mainly the genre of novel defined by the novelist Walter Scott as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", in contrast to mainstream novels which realistically depict the state of a society. These works frequently, but not exclusively, take the form of the historical novel. Scott's novels are also frequently described as historical romances, and Northrop Frye suggested "the general principle that most 'historical novels' are romances". Scott describes romance as a "kindred term", and many European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo".
Margaret Jones Bolsterli is an American author, editor, and professor emerita of English. In 2012 she won the Porter Fund Literary Prize.
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