| The Dividing Line Histories of William Byrd II of Westover Contributor(s): Berland, Kevin Joel (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1469633450 ISBN-13: 9781469633459 Publisher: Omohundro Institute and Unc Press OUR PRICE: $45.13 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2017 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - Colonial Period (1600-1775) - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) |
| Dewey: 320.12 |
| LCCN: 2013028393 |
| Series: Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American Histo |
| Physical Information: 1.4" H x 6.4" W x 9.5" (1.65 lbs) 528 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - South |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: After his 1728 Virginia-North Carolina boundary expedition, Virginia planter and politician William Byrd II composed two very different accounts of his adventures. The Secret History of the Line was written for private circulation, offering tales of scandalous behavior and political misconduct, peppered with rakish humor and personal satire. The History of the Dividing Line, continually revised by Byrd for decades after the expedition, was intended for the London literary market, though not published in his lifetime. Collating all extant manuscripts, Kevin Joel Berland's landmark scholarly edition of these two histories provides wide-ranging historical and cultural contexts for both, helping to recreate the social and intellectual ethos of Byrd and his time. Byrd enriched his narratives with material appropriated from earlier authors, many of whose works were in his library--the most extensive in the American colonies. Berland identifies for the first time many of Byrd's sources and raises the question: how reliable are histories that build silently upon antecedent texts and present borrowed material as firsthand testimony? In his analysis, Berland demonstrates the need for a new category to assess early modern history writing: the hybrid, accretional narrative. |
Contributor Bio(s): Berland, Kevin Joel: - Kevin Joel Berland is professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the Pennsylvania State University. |