I’ve come into some unusually good deals lately and have added significantly to the “old wing” of my library… hence old things are indeed new again. The majority of these (in fact, all but the two on the top) date prior to the Civil War. Essentially, all that you see here have connections to the Shenandoah Valley… either by topic or author… or both. In the case of two of the books… one copy of Virginia Illustrated and the copy of Quodlibet… they are signed by the author. Some will note that, at the bottom of the stack, there are three copies of David Hunter Strother’s Virginia Illustrated… that’s just reflective of my Strother obsession. I’m still puzzling (except for the possibility that it may have just been that the color of the day was just what they had available) over why there were three different cloth covers (and two types of “pressing” used) in a book that was published in the same year. Incidentally, one is signed to a person with very close ties to the John Brown incident.
Authors represented in this stack include David Hunter Strother, John Pendleton Kennedy, William Gilmore Simms (though he was neither from the Valley or writing about it… just that Strother prepared the illustrations for the book), Philip Pendleton Kennedy (brother to J.P. Kennedy), John Esten Cooke, John White Page, Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer, and Frances Courtenay Baylor. The book at the very top was written by Rhode Islander, Hezekiah Butterworth, but focuses on Greenway Court (Lord Fairfax and George Washington in days prior to the Revolution and French & Indian War). All the rest are Southern writers (though John Pendleton Kennedy’s “Southernness” has been questioned a few times.
With the exception of one of the works, all are part of my research effort regarding literature and the Shenandoah Valley.
I’ll write more about some of these in the coming months.
Cotton Boll Conspiracy
October 14, 2014
Very cool. I love books, especially old books. My wife, who is considerably neater than me, has many a time been ready to pull out her beautiful red hair in frustration for all the books I have about the house.
Every region has its own unique literature; I look forward to at some future point reading a post on your thoughts regarding the literature of the Valley.
Robert Moore
October 14, 2014
Thanks, CBC. In some ways I have to ask myself if this has become an obsession… but I prefer to refer to it as an investment. 🙂 I suspect you are particularly pleased to see a South Carolinian in the bunch?!
Cotton Boll Conspiracy
October 14, 2014
Yes, Simms’ name stood out. I have not read any of his works, but I will have to do so before long. It appears he was rather prolific.
Hey, if you’re going to have an obsession, there are far worse things than regional literature, right?
Robert Moore
October 14, 2014
Lol! Indeed.
Richard Williams
October 14, 2014
Great stuff there Robert. I’m trying to get my library organized once more now that the book is complete. Once I do, I’ll share some of my old titles with you. Give me a few days on those relics for age ID.
Robert Moore
October 15, 2014
Thanks, Richard!