Women's diaries and letters of the South

"The diary that Angelina Grimke (1805-1879) kept from 1828 through 1835 offers a window into the spiritual struggles and personal evolution of a woman who would become one of the nation's most fervent abolitionists. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, and an heir to a family enterprise dependent on slave labor, Grimke was an unlikely supporter of emancipation. Only after years of inner turmoil did she leave the South to join her sister Sarah in the crusade against slavery. While Grimke's public persona has been widely studied, the private spiritual and intellectual journey that preceded her public career and pushed her to the forefront of the abolitionist movement is chronicled here for the first time in Walking by Faith."--BOOK JACKET.

"Augusta Jane Evans Wilson (1835-1909) was one of the nineteenth-century America's most popular novelists and outspoken supporters of the Confederacy. Her nine novels include the recently reissued Beulah, the stridently pro-Confederate Macaria, and the extremely successful St. Elmo, which rivaled Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur in sales. In addition to writing best-selling books, Wilson was a powerful letter-writer whose correspondents included prominent Confederate leaders. Wilson's epistles, 112 of which are gathered in this volume, reveal the depth of her ambitions for herself and the Confederacy. They also offer a clear view into the world of a southern woman immersed in war, writing, and the bitterness of military defeat.". "Wilson worked hard to place herself at the center of action during the Civil War and after the surrender assiduously maintained her correspondence with prominent people of her day. In addition to writing Confederate propaganda, her wartime activities included an extended correspondence with General P. T. G. Beauregard and Confederate congressmen Jabez L. M. Curry. In her letters Wilson reviews battle plans and military policy, offers political advice, and illumines the hardships suffered by southerners. Her correspondence portrays her as an assertive, well-educated woman who addressed powerful men on equal terms and only occasionally lapsed into traditional feminine deference. Of equal interest, the volume includes Wilson's writings to friends, publishers, fans, and family members. Wilson's working correspondence with her editors and myriad admirers captures her views on the purposes of fiction, the trials of publishing during the war, and the difficulties of combining career and family."--BOOK JACKET.

"Mary Bayard Clarke (1827-1886) grew up in a North Carolina planter family that revered southern traditions, but she was not a woman to be stymied by conventional expectations. A writer of ambition and ability, she published poetry and prose, traveled widely, corresponded with prominent men and women of her day, and repeatedly challenged stereotypes of nineteenth-century women. Her writings, letters, and family papers reveal a fiercely independent, creative, and adaptable individual - a woman who seemingly lived several lives in one lifetime and who shattered traditional images of the "southern lady" along the way. Gathered in this volume, Clarke's papers offer a wealth of revisionist insights as they tell the life story of a remarkable woman.". "The value of these writings lies in the broad range of themes and locales they cover. Clarke traveled to Cuba, New York, and Chicago; spent five arduous years on the frontier in San Antonio; and in 1861, against her husband's wishes, returned to North Carolina, where she lived for the rest of her life.". "Clarke's reaction to the Civil War and its aftermath makes for particularly interesting reading. During the war Clarke wrote in support of the Southern cause and sold poetry and newspaper articles to augment the family income. After Appomattox she published scathing indictments of Radical Reconstruction. When Clarke's husband joined the Republican Party in 1868, her family, and probably Clarke herself, was shocked. Letters from family members reveal the depth of their anger, and Clarke's own words illustrate the difficulties of living as the spouse of a scalawag in the Reconstruction South."--BOOK JACKET.