Description:
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1790-1870) was a lawyer, judge, state senator, newspaper editor, minister, political propagandist, and college president. He was also a writer who published one of Georgia's first important literary works in 1835, Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, Etc. in the First Half Century of the Republic. John Donald Wade's biography of Longstreet was first published in 1924 but was out of print during most of Wade's lifetime. In this 1969 reissue, M. Thomas Inge provides a bibliography of Wade's published work in addition to an introduction.
As Inge notes, this biography was one of the first attempts to assess the cultural background of southern literature and it was the first real effort to investigate the nature of southwestern humor. In the opening chapter Wade announces his theme by saying that the history of Longstreet becomes "an epitome, in some sense, of American civilization." The biography gradually narrows to a southern focus and as Inge remarks, Wade attempts "to take a panoramic view of the psyche of an entire society through one representative figure."Brief description: JOHN DONALD WADE (1892-1963) was a noted biographer, essayist, and literary scholar. He was a member of the Vanderbilt Agrarian movement and a contributor to its manifesto, I'll Take My Stand. Wade was also the founder of the Georgia Review.
Review Quotes:
Deserving of high praise for the breadth, depth, and range of the author's study . . . this is a careful, sympathetic study of a singular figure and the even more extraordinary background against which he is here so effectively silhouetted.
--Mississippi Valley Historical Review