Title

"I Had Never Before ... Heard of Him At All": William Gilmore Simms, the Elusive William North, and a Lost Simms Novel About American Authorship

Author(s)

Patrick G. Scott, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow

Document Type

Article

Subject Area(s)

American literature, Southern literature, Victorian literature, history of authorshipt

Abstract

Examines a review by the antebellum Southern novelist William Gilmore Simms of a new book by the English writer William North (1825-1854), North's posthumous novel The Slave of the Lamp (1855), discusses possible reasons for Simms's hostility to North such as North's links to the New York Bohemians and his anti-professionalism, and explores what the review reveals about a now-lost Simms novel, with the same title, that gave a different perspective on mid-19th century changes in the conditions and profession of authorship in America.

Publication Info

Published in Simms Review, Volume 19, Issue 1-2, 2011, pages 5-17.

Scott, Patrick. "'I Had Never Before ... Heard of Him At All': William Gilmore Simms, the Elusive William North, and a Lost Simms Novel About American Authorship." Simms Review 19.1-2 (2011): 5-17. (c) Simms Review, 2012, William Gilmore Simms Society.