Reviews
Recent Editions
This annual bibliography of documentary editions recently published in the fields of American and British history, literature, and culture is generally restricted to scholarly first editions of English-language works. In addition to the bibliographical references, Internet addresses are provided for the editorial project or the publisher.
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ADAMS, JOHN. Papers of John Adams, Volume 16: February 1784–March 1785. Edited by Gregg L. Lint, C. James Taylor, Robert F. Karachuk, Hobson Woodward, Margaret A. Hogan, Neal E. Millikan, Sara B. Sikes, Sara Martin, Sara Georgini, Amanda A. Mathews, and James T. Connolly. Harvard University Press. 2012. 680 pp. $95. ISBN: 9780674065574. This volume chronicles a period when Adams raised a new Dutch loan to rescue the United States from financial ruin, joined Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in a commission to negotiate commercial treaties with European and North African countries, welcomed his wife, Abigail, and daughter Nabby to Paris, and ironed out remaining differences between America and Great Britain.
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ADAMS FAMILY. Diary and Autobiographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, Volume 1: 1778–1815. Volume 2: 1819–49. Edited by Judith S. Graham, Beth Luey, Margaret A. Hogan, and C. James Taylor. Harvard University Press. 2012. 920 pp. $95. ISBN: 9780674058682. Born in London in 1775, Louisa Catherine Johnson married John Quincy Adams in 1797 and accompanied him on ministerial postings to Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London. Her memoirs of these years offer a vivid portrait of the young republican couple in the courts of Europe. In diaries, Adams preserved her reflections on life as a political wife and offered insights into her husband's illustrious career.
- AMERICAN SOUTH. See EARLY REPUBLIC; GABRIEL; GARDENING; NATURAL HISTORY; PINCKNEY FAMILY; PRESBYTERIANISM; SLAVE NARRATIVES
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ANARCHISM. Prison Blossoms: Anarchist Voices from the American Past. Edited by Miriam Brody and Bonnie Buettner. Harvard University Press. 260 pp. $26.95. ISBN: 9780674050563. Imprisoned in 1892 for the attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick, anarchists Alexander Berkman, Henry Bauer, and Carl Nold disseminated their political messages to fellow inmates through a clandestine handwritten magazine called "Prison Blossoms." Political polemics, utopian poems, narratives of homosexual relations among the inmates, and exposés of brutal prison conditions filled the pages, many of which were smuggled out to political allies such as Emma Goldman. Having survived virtually unrecognized for over a century, the "Blossoms" have been transcribed, edited, and published for the first time.
- ANTHONY, SUSAN B. See Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
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BLAKE, WILLIAM. Genesis: William Blake's Last Illuminated Work. Edited by Mark Crosby and Robert N. Essick. University of California Press. 2012. 100 pp. $80. ISBN: 9780873282475. Started shortly before his death in 1827, Blake's illuminated manuscript of the book of Genesis explored such themes as creation, division, and forgiveness. This edition presents a full-size color reproduction of the manuscript. Unfinished pages offer rare insights into Blake's method, while editorial commentary considers Blake's interpretation of Genesis.
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BOSWELL, JAMES. James Boswell's Life of Johnson: An Edition of the Original Manuscript in Four Volumes. Volume 3: 1776–1780. Edited by Thomas F. Bonnell. Yale University Press. 2012. 454 pp. $85. ISBN: 9780300182927. Boswell's original mazelike manuscript consisted of his basic draft along with innumerable revisions. Supplemented by textual and explanatory notes, this modern transcription enables readers to trace Boswell's changes, restores lost and deleted material, and corrects previously undetected errors and misreading.
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BRITTEN, BENJAMIN. Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten. Volume 6: 1966–1976. Edited by Philip Reed and Mervyn Cooke. Boydell and Brewer. 2012. 880 pp. $80. ISBN: 9781843837251. The final volume of this set of the annotated correspondence of the famous composer covers the last decade of his life. The letters, many between Britten and his life partner and principal interpreter, Peter Pears, provide insights into the composition and premieres of such major stage works as Owen Wingrave and Death in Venice. Other correspondents include Dmitri Shostakovich, William Walton, Janet Baker, and Queen Elizabeth II and her mother.
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BROWNING, ROBERT. The Complete Works of Robert Browning, Volume 17. Edited by Ashby Bland Crowder and Allan C. Dooley. Ohio University Press. 2012. 520 pp. $79.95. ISBN: 9780821419816. The last volume of the series includes Browning's final collection, Asolano: Fancies and Facts (1889), as well as ninety-nine fugitive pieces, either unpublished or uncollected during the poet's lifetime. The volume also contains a biographical essay Browning coauthored in 1836 that informed his play Stafford. A title index to all seventeen volumes of the Works also appears.
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BUFFALO BILL. The Wild West in England. By William F. Cody. Edited by Frank Christiansen. University of Nebraska Press. 2012. 232 pp. $17.95. ISBN: 9780803240544. In 1888, Cody published The Story of the Wild West, a collection of biographies of well-known frontiersman that also included an abridged version of his autobiography and an addendum. That volume is now published here as a standalone, fully annotated edition, including promotional materials and photographs. In it, Cody describes the Wild West exhibition that offered English audiences a mythic window into the American frontier experience. He also recounts stories of his time spent with London's elite society, exploring his self-proclaimed role as an ambassador of American culture.
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BURNEY, FANNY. The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume 5: 1782–1783. Edited by Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke. McGill-Queen's University Press. 2012. 528 pp. $135. ISBN: 9780773505421. During the period covered by this volume, Burney confirmed her rising reputation as a leading English novelist with the publication of Cecilia. Her appointment as keeper of the robes for Queen Charlotte provided financial security and a view of court life. The documents also illuminate Burney's struggles as she lost the companionship of her recently married sister and suffered the death of friend and mentor Samuel Crisp.
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CIVIL WAR. See EWELL, RICHARD S.
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COLONIAL LOUISIANA. The Memoir of Lieutenant Dumont, 1715–1747: A Sojourner in the French Atlantic. Edited by Gordon M. Sayre and Carla Zecher. University of North Carolina Press. 2012. 472 pp. $50. ISBN: 9780807837221. Conserved at the Newberry Library, the memoir of Jean-François-Benjamin Dumont de Montigny recounts the French colonist's experiences in Louisiana from 1719 to the early 1740s. Among the pivotal events Dumont witnessed were the battle for Pensacola in 1719, the uprising of the Natchez Indians in 1729, and the French expedition against the Chickasaw in 1739–40. This English translation includes maps and a biographical dictionary to enhance the text.
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COLONIAL MASSACHUSETTS. The Papers of Francis Bernard, Volume 2: Governor of Colonial Massachusetts, 1760–1769. Edited by Colin Nicolson. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 616 pp. $49.50. ISBN: 9780979466298. Royal governor during the tumultuous decade that saw Massachusetts set the pattern for American reactions to the Stamp Act and other British measures, Bernard provided firsthand observations on the birth of the American movement for independence. This is the second of a four-volume set that will advance scholarship on late eighteenth-century British imperial historiography.
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COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE. The Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief. Edited by Matthew Wynn Sivils and James P. Elliot. AMS Press. 2012. 169 pp. $124.50. ISBN: 9780404644840. One of Cooper's most experimental works, this 1843 novella was Cooper's first attempt at serialized fiction. Narrated by an omniscient handkerchief, the work follows the object from the flax fields of Normandy to the war-torn streets of Paris to the opulence of elite New York City. Cooper drew upon French radical politics to comment on the greed and cultural myopia he perceived in his own homeland.
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COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE. The Bravo: A Venetian Story. Edited by Lance Schachterle and James A. Sappenfield. Notes by Anna Scannavini. Introduction by Kay Seymour House. AMS Press. 2012. 482 pp. $197.50. ISBN: 9780404644796. Begun amid the turmoil of the July Revolution in Paris in 1830, The Bravo depicts the corruption endemic to the early eighteenth-century Venetian republic. The novel served as a critique of the French oligarchy's usurpation of the 1830 revolution, as well as a rebuke of commercial America. Based on the first London edition of 1834, the only one Cooper proofread, this edition includes variants from the rough-draft manuscript.
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DAVIS, JEFFERSON. The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 13: 1871–1879. Edited by Lynda Lasswell Crist and Suzanne Scott Gibbs. Louisiana State University Press. 2012. 768 pp. $125. ISBN: 9780807139066. This volume follows Davis as he tried to overcome his financial woes by becoming head of a Memphis-based insurance company. The Panic of 1873 forced the sale of the company, and Davis left for England in search of employment and better health. He eventually made his way to New Orleans as the president of a London-based company. During this period, Davis wrote frequently about politics, waged a legal fight for the restoration of his Mississippi plantation, and inherited from a family friend Beauvoir, the Gulf Coast estate that was his final residence.
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DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. The Frederick Douglass Papers: Autobiographical Writings. Volume 3: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Edited by John R. McKivigan. Yale University Press. 2012. 1,200 pp. $150. ISBN: 9780300176346. First published in 1881 and expanded in 1892, Douglass's Life and Times offered a comprehensive treatment of his life. He considered it his most significant autobiography. The work revisits material covered in Douglass's earlier autobiographies and connects the events to later events in his life, illuminating his views of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Gilded Age.
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EARLY REPUBLIC. The Journal of Peter Horry, South Carolinian: Recording the New Republic, 1812–1814. Edited by Roy Talbert Jr. and Meggan A. Farish. University of South Carolina Press. 2012. 312 pp. $39.95. ISBN: 9781611171044. Horry had served during the Revolution under Nathanael Greene and Francis Marion and later as a South Carolina legislator. He was the namesake of Horry District, where he owned a rice plantation. This edition includes all of Horry's extant journal entries, some of which have been previously published, and offers readers insights into agricultural practices, daily life, and dealings between Horry and his enslaved workers. The journal also provides a local account of the War of 1812 and a view of the new South Carolina College in Columbia, where Horry moved in 1814.
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ELIOT, T. S. The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 3: 1926–27. Edited by Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden. Yale University Press. 2012. 992 pp. $50. ISBN: 9780300187236. During the period covered by this volume, Eliot fully embraced a career as a publisher. His celebrated but financially pressed journal, The Criterion, switched from quarterly to monthly publication. His correspondence reveals the stresses of his career, his artistic transformation, and private anxieties.
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EMERSON, RALPH WALDO. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 10: Uncollected Prose Writings. Edited by Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson. Notes by Glen M. Johnson. Harvard University Press. 2012. 934 pp. $95. ISBN: 9780674049581. This final volume of the series prints all the previously published prose writings that Emerson left uncollected at his death. The editors have culled posthumous publications in order to restore a canon consisting solely of what Emerson alone wrote and authorized for publication.
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EWELL, RICHARD S. The Letters of General Richard S. Ewell: Stonewall's Successor. Edited by Donald C. Pfanz. University of Tennessee Press. 2012. 504 pp. ISBN: 9781572338739. This volume greatly expands on Ewell's previously published correspondence and includes 173 personal letters, seven official letters, four battle narratives, and two memoranda based on Civil War incidents. Covering the full range of the Confederate general's career, from his days at West Point to his postbellum efforts as a farmer in Tennessee and Mississippi.
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FIELDING, HENRY. Plays, Volume 3: 1734–1742. Edited by Thomas Lockwood. Oxford University Press. 2011. 800 pp. $299. ISBN: 9780199257911. Fielding wrote twenty-eight plays, and this volume, which completes a set of edited versions, includes nine from the most controversial years of Fielding's theater career. Included here is Eurydice Hiss'd, a satiric play that so outraged Robert Walpole that the prime minister saw through the Licensing Act of 1737, thus putting an end to unsanctioned playhouses and plays and with it Fielding's career in theater. The plays appear in critical texts based on careful collation of the original editions, with explanatory notes.
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FORD, JOHN. The Collected Works of John Ford, Volume 1. Edited by Gilles Monsarrat, Brian Vickers, and R. J. C. Watt. Oxford University Press. 2012. 552 pp. $275. ISBN: 9780199592906. Ford was one of the leading playwrights of the post-Shakespeare generation. This volume presents authoritative texts of all Ford's poems and prose works, including two poems newly ascribed to Ford. All texts in the Collected Works are freshly edited from the original quarto editions or from manuscripts.
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GABRIEL. Gabriel's Conspiracy: A Documentary History. Edited by Philip J. Schwarz. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 256 pp. $59.50. ISBN: 9780813932941. Well known to historians, the planned but averted slave rebellion of the Richmond-area enslaved man Gabriel inspired a range of documents, most of them until now inaccessible. Schwarz has collected legislative acts and other documents related to southern legislatures' efforts to tighten restrictions on slaves.
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GARDENING. The Garden Diary of Martha Turnbull, Mistress of Rosedown Plantation. Edited by Suzanne Turner. Louisiana State University Press. 2012. 416 pp. $39.95. ISBN: 9780807144114. Recovered in the mid-1990s, Martha Turnbull's garden diary provides a firsthand account of plantation life and gardening in the Deep South. The interplay between Turnbull's manuscript and Turner's annotations reveals the pivotal role that kitchen and pleasure gardens played in the lives of planter families, as well as the relationships between Turnbull and her enslaved gardeners. The diary spans the years between 1836 and 1894, thus offering a glimpse at the transitions between the antebellum and postbellum periods.
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GOLDMAN, EMMA. Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years. Volume 3: Light and Shadows, 1910–1916. Edited by Candace Falk. Stanford University Press. 2012. 880 pp. $65. ISBN: 9780804778541. Benefiting from a period of relative tolerance for radical ideas, Goldman enjoyed some of her most prolific years, expanding her influence beyond New York's Lower East Side to a new milieu of intellectuals and bohemians. This volume's primary sources include letters, newspaper reportage, government surveillance documents, and essays and speeches, all paired with scholarly annotation.
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HECHT, ANTHONY. The Selected Letters of Anthony Hecht. Edited by Jonathan F. S. Post. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 352 pp. $35. ISBN: 9781421407302. Culled from over 4,000 letters, this edition provides an intimate look into Hecht's mind and artistic process across his lifetime, from early days at summer camp, to college at Bard, to combat in World War II, to his eventual fame as a poet and critic. Correspondents include Richard Wilbur, Anne Sexton, and James Merrill.
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HERBERT, GEORGE. The Digital Temple: A Documentary Edition of George Herbert's English Verse. Edited by Robert Whalen and Christopher Hodgkins. Rotunda. 2012. $695. ISBN: 9780813932521. Published shortly before his death in 1633, The Temple is considered one of the finest collections of devotional verse in the English language. This digital edition presents the primary materials essential to the study of Herbert's English verse in a user-friendly environment. A copy of the 1633 first edition accompanies transcriptions of the two known manuscripts and editorial commentary.
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HOBBES, THOMAS. Leviathan. Edited by Noel Malcolm. Oxford University Press. 2012. Quantity Pack, 1,832 pp. $375. ISBN: 9780199602629. This three-volume set is the first critical edition of Leviathan based on a full study of the manuscript and printing history. It places the English text alongside Hobbes's own Latin version and includes notes that translate Latin passages that differed significantly from the English. The first volume is taken up by the editor's introduction, which gives an incisive account of the work's context, sources, and textual history.
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HOGG, JAMES. Contributions to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 2: 1829–1835. Edited by Thomas Richardson. Edinburgh University Press. 2012. 432 pp. $95. ISBN: 9780748624898. From 1817 to his death in 1835, James Hogg published about 115 works in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which showcased the diversity of his talent. Poems and songs, sketches of rural life, review essays, short stories, and satirical pieces enlivened the journal's pages. This edition includes previously unpublished submitted work from the same period and full explanatory and textual notes.
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JAMES, HENRY. The Master, the Modern Major General, and His Clever Wife: Henry James's Letters to Field Marshal Lord Wolseley and Lady Wolseley, 1878–1913. Edited by Alan G. James. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 264 pp. $50. ISBN: 9780813932354. During his expatriate days in England, James enjoyed a warm friendship with Britain's military chief and his wife. This edition collects over one hundred letters, most published for the first time, and illuminates James's life in England and his place in English society. The letters also evoke James's brilliant style.
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JAY, JOHN. The Selected Papers of John Jay, Volume 2: 1780–1782. Edited by Elizabeth M. Nuxoll. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 928 pp. $85. ISBN: 9780813931234. Covering Jay's first diplomatic mission (to Spain), this volume explores his efforts to gain diplomatic recognition and financial support from a reluctant nation and delineates the conflicts that plagued Spanish-American relations for decades. Personal letters, which reveal the strains on Jay's family, supplement public correspondence with American, Spanish, and French officials. Jay's experiences in Spain set the stage for his insistence on a strong, independent American nation.
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JEFFERSON, THOMAS. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 38: 1 July 1802 to 12 November 1802. Edited by Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, Elaine Weber Pascu, Martha J. King, Tom Downey, and W. Bland Whitley. Princeton University Press. 2011. 826 pp. $115. ISBN: 9780691153230. Opening as Jefferson expectedly eyes his summer departure for Monticello and closing as he anxiously awaits the arrival of his daughters and two grandchildren to the President's House in Washington, this volume covers a stressful time in his presidency. The declaration of war against the United States by Morocco forces him and his cabinet members to balance diplomatic efforts and the application of naval power in the Mediterranean. Closer to home, James T. Callender's accusations appear in a Richmond newspaper and make public his relationship with Sally Hemings.
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JEFFERSON, THOMAS. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series. Volume 8: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815. Edited by J. Jefferson Looney, Robert F. Haggard, Julie L. Lautenschlager, Ellen C. Hickman, and Christine Sternberg Patrick. Princeton University Press. 2011. 800 pp. $115. ISBN: 9780691153186. In the period covered in this volume, Jefferson is heartened by American victories at the end of the War of 1812 and remains interested in the treaty negotiations. He oversees the packing and transportation of his book collection to the Library of Congress, using the proceeds to pay off old debts but also to purchase new titles. He resigns the presidency of the American Philosophical Society and drafts a bill transforming Albemarle Academy into Central College. Other topics include the history of Virginia, the Stamp Act, and race.
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JEFFERSON FAMILY. Thomas Jefferson's Granddaughter in Queen Victoria's England: The Travel Diary of Ellen Wayles Coolidge, 1839–1839. Edited by Ann Lucas Birle and Lisa A. Francavilla. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 432 pp. $45. ISBN:9781936520022. The most intellectually gifted of Thomas Jefferson's grandchildren, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge accompanied her husband, a wealthy Boston merchant, to London in June 1838. The diary she kept there reveals her keen intelligence and deep learning. It is filled with her observations of London's public spaces, as well as details of her meetings with writers and activists.
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JOHNSON, SAMUEL. The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volumes 11–13: Debates in Parliament. Edited by Thomas Kaminski, Benjamin Beard Hoover, and O. M. Brack Jr. Yale University Press. 2012. 1,680 pp. $350. ISBN: 9780300125177. From 1741 to 1744, Johnson composed speeches based on the actual debates in Parliament for publication in the Gentleman's Magazine. Because of restrictions on printing such accounts, the magazine thinly disguised Johnson's contributions as "Debates in the Senate of Magna Lilliputia." In these volumes, critical notes accompany Johnson's speeches, which for the first time retain his original Lilliputian terminology.
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LOCKE, JOHN. Vindications of the Reasonableness of Christianity. Edited by Victor Nuovo. Oxford University Press. 2011. 448 pp. $125. ISBN: 9780199286553. The first critical edition of Locke's Vindication and Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity, the volume presents the philosopher's defense against charges of heterodoxy. The works have contributed to the understanding of Christianity's role in shaping Locke's thought and reveal his sophistication as a biblical scholar. In addition to a full editorial apparatus, the volume includes an abridged French translation executed by a Huguenot scholar working under Locke's patronage.
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MADISON, DOLLEY. The Queen of America: Mary Cutts's Life of Dolley Madison. Edited by Catherine Allgor. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 240 pp. $29.50. ISBN: 9780813932989. Because Dolley Madison left behind no account of her life, Mary Cutts's memoir of her aunt has been considered the closest readers can come to Madison's autobiographical voice. This edition offers an annotated transcription of both drafts of the memoir, as well as commentary that situates the memoir as both an important source for Madison and an attempt by Cutts to establish her own historical significance.
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MADISON, JAMES. The Papers of James Madison, Presidential Series. Volume 7: 25 October 1813–30 June 1814. Edited by Angela Kreider, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, Anne Mandeville Colony, and Katharine E. Harbury. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 696 pp. $85. ISBN: 9780813932569. This volume documents Madison's response to diplomatic developments and European military events affecting the war between the United States and Great Britain. He accepted an offer for peace negotiations while attempting to strengthen America's diplomatic hand and continuing the planning and financing of military campaigns. Included also are family letters, a vituperative message from a disgruntled White House steward, and a revealing account of an 1813 conversation between Madison and the editor of the Edinburgh Review.
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MARSHALL, GEORGE CATLETT. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Volume 6: "The Whole World Hangs in the Balance," January 8, 1947–September 30, 1949. Edited by Larry I. Bland, Mark A. Stoler, Sharon Ritenour Stevens, and Daniel D. Holt. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2012. 960 pp. $90. ISBN: 9781421407920. Covering Marshall's two years as secretary of state, this volume illustrates the pivotal role Marshall played in reshaping American foreign policy in the midst of the beginning of the Cold War, decolonization in the subcontinent, and the creation of the state of Israel. The close relationships Marshall forged with congressional leaders, well-prepared presentations before committees, and numerous public appearances helped enable the broad support enjoyed by his strategic proposals.
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MAXIMILIAN OF WIED. The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied, Volume 3: September 1833–August 1834. Edited by Stephen S. Witte and Marsha V. Gallagher. Translated by Dieter Karch. University of Oklahoma Press. 2012. 544 pp. $85. ISBN: 9780806139241. In 1833–34, Prince Maximilian Alexander Philipp followed the route traveled by Lewis and Clark, recording his observations of the natural environment, Native peoples, and the burgeoning fur trade, among other subjects. His journal was reinforced by the watercolors and prints of Karl Bodmer, a young Swiss artist who accompanied him. This third and final volume narrates Maximilian's extended stay in Fort Clark, where he studied the Mandan and Hidatsa nations, and his return voyage eastward and on to his home in Germany.
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MILITARY HISTORY. The World War I Memoirs of Robert P. Patterson: A Captain in the Great War. Edited by J. Garry Clifford. University of Tennessee Press. 2012. 136 pp. $32. ISBN: 9781572338474. Written in the years following the war, this memoir captures how raw and unprepared American troops were for the battles they encountered in Europe and the horrors and camaraderie they experienced there. Robert P. Patterson went on to manage US mobilization during World War II as assistant secretary, undersecretary, and secretary of war.
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MILTON, JOHN. The Complete Works of John Milton, Volume 3: Shorter Poems. Edited by Barbara Kiefer Lewalski and Estelle Haan. Oxford University Press. 2012. 800 pp. $250. ISBN: 9780199609017. The volume provides definitive editions of all Milton's shorter poems in English, Italian, Latin, and Greek. In addition to historical introductions and textual notes, new translations of the Latin and Greek works make the poems more accessible to readers. The volume displays the ways in which author, publisher, and printer shaped the 1645 and 1673 versions of his Poems.
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MORMONS. Plural Wife: The Life Story of Mabel Finlayson Allred. Edited by Martha Bradley-Evans. Utah State University Press. 2012. 200 pp. $34.95. ISBN: 9780874218749. Allred was married to the leader of the Apostolic United Brethren, one of the fundamentalist groups that have practiced plural marriage in opposition to the policy adopted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her autobiography maintains a mood of normalcy in contrast to the stress of ostracism that she experienced. Her overall cheerful tone is tempered by sober discussions of her clinical depression, the inner struggles of her husband, and difficulties with the law, as well as a frank account of her husband's 1977 assassination.
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MORRIS, JANE. The Collected Letters of Jane Morris. Edited by Jan Marsh and Frank C. Sharp. Boydell and Brewer. 2012. 528 pp. $165. ISBN: 9781843836766. Wife of William Morris, lover of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and a famous model of the Pre-Raphaelites, Jane Morris has attracted increasing scholarly attention. The more than 500 letters collected and annotated here radically revise earlier views of her and reveal her involvement in many of her husband's more notable endeavors, as well as their political differences.
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NATURAL HISTORY. Letters from Alabama, Chiefly Relating to Natural History. By Philip Henry Gosse. Edited by Gary R. Mullen and Taylor D. Littleton. University of Alabama Press. 2012. 280 pp. $34.95. ISBN: 9780817317898. Philip Henry Gosse was a young Englishman who in 1838 was employed as a teacher in Dallas County, Alabama. Letters from Alabama, first published in 1859, offered a personalized account of his experiences and focused on the natural history of the area. His epistolary discussions are filled with detailed evocations of the culture of frontier Black Belt Alabama and of the area's natural life. This edition includes a new introduction and index, as well as an appendix that provides modern scientific and common names for the animal and plant species that Gosse described.
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O'NEILL, EUGENE. Exorcism: A Play in One Act. Introduction by Edward Albee. Yale University Press. 2012. 96 pp. $18. ISBN: 9780300181319. Revolving around a suicide attempt, Exorcism draws on an incident in O'Neill's own life. Shortly after its debut, O'Neill canceled production and ordered all extant copies destroyed. A researcher recently discovered a typescript, complete with the playwright's handwritten edits. The early drama explores many of the themes that permeate O'Neill's later work and offers a window into his development as a writer.
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PERSHING, JOHN J. My Life before the World War, 1860–1917: A Memoir. Edited by John T. Greenwood. University of Kentucky Press. 2012. 656 pp. $50. ISBN: 9780813141978. Pershing, who published a two-volume memoir of his experiences leading the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, also drafted a memoir of his prewar experiences. Now rescued, the carefully edited and annotated memoir traces Pershing's rich career in campaigns against the Apaches and Sioux, on tours of duty in the Philippines, as an observer of the Russo-Japanese War, and during the campaign against Pancho Villa.
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PINCKNEY FAMILY. The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry, Digital Edition. Edited by Constance B. Schultz. Rotunda. 2012. $595. ISBN: 9780813932514. Spanning almost a century, the letters, diaries, and other documents of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and her daughter Harriott Pinckney Horry offer a view of politics, social life, and plantation management in the late colonial and early republic periods. The letters of Pinckney and Horry demonstrate the importance of transatlantic and interregional links among women of their class. Presented in a fully searchable XML environment, this edition features over 750 annotated documents, a glossary of names and places, and an introduction.
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PRESBYTERIANISM. The South Carolina Diary of Reverend Archibald Simpson. Edited by Peter N. Moore. University of South Carolina Press. 2012. Part 1, May 1754–April 1770. 360 pp. $69.95. ISBN: 9781611170467. Part 2, April 1770–March 1784. 352 pp. $69.95. ISBN: 9781611170474. Featuring annotated selections from the journal of a noted lowcountry Presbyterian pastor and planter, this two-volume edition highlights the sensitive observations of Simpson, a Scotland-born minister. Simpson filled his journals with geographical information, local history, commentary on the local culture, and religious meditations. Having departed for Great Britain in 1772, Simpson returned to South Carolina in 1783 and wrote descriptions of the war-ravaged landscape he encountered.
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PUGIN, A. W. N. The Collected Letters of A. W. N. Pugin, Volume 4: 1849 to 1850. Edited by Margaret Belcher. Oxford University Press. 2012. 624 pp. $240. ISBN: 9780199607846. A British architect and designer, Pugin played a key role in the Gothic revival, the origins of the Arts and Crafts movement, and in architectural theory. Happily married and settled in Ramsgate during the period of this fourth of five volumes, Pugin finished his work Floriated Ornament, worked extensively as a designer of stained glass, and completed the building of St. Augustine Church, next to his house. He also began work on the Medieval Court, the outstanding display in the Great Exhibition of 1851.
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RANCHING. Letters to Alice: Birth of the Kleberg-King Ranch Dynasty. Edited by Jane Clements Monday and Frances Brannen Vick. Texas A&M University Press. 192 pp. $29.95. ISBN: 9781603444712. A young lawyer hoping to find employ with cattle baron Richard King, Robert Justus Kleberg met King's daughter Alice in 1881. The letters presented here depict their courtship, the time surrounding Richard King's death, and the passing of his ranching empire to the next generation.
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REPUBLICANISM. Marchamont Nedham's The Excellencie of a Free-State. Edited by Blair Worden. Liberty Fund Books. 2012. 280 pp. $24. ISBN: 9780865978089. Marchamont Nedham was a polemicist, pamphleteer, and editor of Mercurius Politicus, a parliamentarian newsbook. Compiled in 1656 from editorials first published in Mercurius, The Excellencie has not been in print in two and a half centuries. Nedham argued that the Commonwealth not create a Cromwellian monarchy but instead lodge political authority in the Parliament. This annotated edition restores a pioneering work of English republicanism.
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ROOSEVELT, ELEANOR. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Volume 2: The Human Rights Years, 1949–1952. Edited by Allida Black. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 1,208 pp. $125. ISBN: 9780813931418. This volume traces Roosevelt's emergence as one of the era's most prominent spokespersons for democracy and as a political force in her own right. Through her writings, readers will gain a view of the inner workings of the Truman administration, the still-new United Nations, and the many social and political movements that commanded her attention. Roosevelt's grasp of the connections between domestic and international affairs led her to support civil rights for African Americans, the Korean War, and the new state of Israel.
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SCOTLAND. The Perth Kirk Session Books, 1577–1590. Edited by Margo Todd. Boydell and Brewer. 2012. 584 pp. $70. ISBN: 9780906245316. The Calvinist Reformation in Scotland brought with it an ecclesiastical governance that empowered laymen. Crafts guildsmen and wealthy merchants took advantage of their authority to exercise unprecedented discipline over the lives of ordinary citizens, policing behavior, adjudicating disputes, and administering poor relief. The annotated minutes of the Perth kirk offer insights into this new discipline, the men who administered it, and the reactions it sparked among other lay people.
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SCOTLAND. Regesta Regum Scottorum IV Part 1: The Acts of Alexander III. Edited by Cynthia J. Neville and Grant G. Simpson. Edinburgh University Press. 2012. 384 pp. $150. ISBN: 9780748627325. Comprised of 330 legal documents from the thirteenth-century reign of Alexander III of Scotland, this volume contains the full texts of 175 acts, together with notes on 155 acts that survive only in notices. Collected from archives in Scotland, England, Belgium, and France, many of the acts have never been published. They offer an opportunity to understand how Scottish government and administration functioned before the reign of Robert Bruce.
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SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE. The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 3. Edited by Donald H. Reiman, Neil Fraistat, and Nora Crook. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2012. 1,152 pp. $100. ISBN: 9781421401362. This volume includes Alastor, one of Shelley's first major works, as well as all the poems he completed for publication or private circulation from 1814 to 1818, a period that saw Shelley emerge as a leader of the Young Romantic movement. Extensive discussions of the poems' composition, publication, reception, and critical history accompany records of textual variations. An appendix consists of the notes on the poems that Mary W. Shelley made in 1839.
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SLAVE NARRATIVES. Rambles of a Runaway from Southern Slavery. By Henry Goings. Edited by Calvin Schermerhorn, Michael Plunkett, and Edward Gaynor. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 200 pp. $45. ISBN: 9780813932385. Born Elijah Turner in the Virginia tidewater, the author ended up in the Lower South. He procured freedom papers from a man he resembled and took that man's name, Henry Goings, before embarking on a journey that took him through Tennessee and Kentucky and eventually to the Great Lakes region and Canada. An informative and insightful introduction brings to light the many important developments that the narrative exposes: the forced migration of enslaved people, the economic forces undergirding that migration, and its attendant human miseries.
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SMITH, JOSEPH. The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories. Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844. Edited by Karen Lynn Davidson, David J. Whittaker, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen. Church Historian's Press. 2012. 560 pp. $54.95. Presented in this volume are the six histories that Joseph Smith personally wrote, dictated, or supervised. Highlights include his accounts of his earliest visions, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the organization of the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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SMITH, JOSEPH. The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories. Volume 2: Assigned Histories. Edited by Karen Lynn Davidson, Richard L. Jensen, and David J. Whittaker. Church Historian's Press. 2012. 480 pp. $54.95. Like the first volume of the series, this volume includes documents intended to narrate the story of the early LDS church. Joseph Smith assigned several of his associates to write church histories, and it is these narratives by such writers as John Whitmer, William John Corrill, and Edward Partridge that comprise the volume. Their work provides a rich and varied view of the church's early years, particularly the "Mormon War" of 1838.
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STANTON, ELIZABETH CADY. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Volume 6: An Awful Hush, 1895–1906. Edited by Ann D. Gordon. Rutgers University Press. 2012. 700 pp. $70. ISBN: 9780813553610. The final volume in the set, An Awful Hush follows the still-productive Stanton and Anthony to their deaths, Stanton in 1902 and Anthony in 1905. Among the themes explored are the women's efforts to cope with Jim Crow and American imperial designs, sex discrimination, and the continuing fight for suffrage. As Stanton wrote to Theodore Roosevelt on the day before her death, "Surely there is no greater monopoly than that of all men, in denying to all women a voice in the laws they are compelled to obey."
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STODDARD, ELIZABETH. The Selected Letters of Elizabeth Stoddard. Edited by Jennifer Putzi and Elizabeth Stockton. University of Iowa Press. 2012. 328 pp. $42. ISBN: 9781609381226. The editors have chosen 84 of the more than 700 letters they located in 18 different archives. They offer a fascinating introduction to the nineteenth-century writer, best known for her 1862 work The Morgersons. With her husband Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Stoddard belonged to New York's vibrant literary and artistic circles, and her correspondents include Rufus Griswold, William Dean Howells, Helen Hunt Jackson, Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr, and James Russell Lowell. Stoddard emerges as an artist who recognized letter writing as a distinct genre in its own right.
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TRANSLATED WORKS. See COLONIAL LOUISIANA; MAXIMILIAN OF WIED; MILTON, JOHN
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TRAVEL NARRATIVES. See JEFFERSON FAMILY; MAXIMILIAN OF WIED
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UNITARIANISM. The Letters of Theophilus Lindsey (1723–1808), Volume 2: 1789–1808. Edited by G. M. Ditchfield. Boydell and Brewer. 2012. 1,024 pp. $170. ISBN: 9781843837428. The second and final volume covers the period during which Theophilus Lindsey played a central role in the formation of Unitarianism as a distinct denomination. His letters offer a window into the tribulations and successes of British dissenters, as well as a view of British reactions to the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.
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WASHINGTON, GEORGE. The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, Volume 21: 1 June–31 July 1779. Edited by William M. Ferraro. University of Virginia Press. 2012. 896 pp. $85. ISBN: 9780813933221. During this period, Washington remained the fulcrum for Continental Army activities. Breaking encampment at Middlebrook, New Jersey, his troops took up positions in the New York highlands to check a British advance on West Point. His plans also culminated on a surprise night attack on the British garrison at Stony Point, boosting patriots' morale. Unable to hold Stony Point, Washington concentrated on completing a system of fortifications at West Point.
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WHARTON, EDITH. My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann. Edited by Irene Goldman-Price. Yale University Press. 2012. 288 pp. $30. ISBN: 9780300169898. Bahlmann was a governess whose most famous charge was Edith Newbold Jones (Wharton). Until Bahlmann's personal effects were auctioned in 2009, only three letters from Wharton's youth were thought to exist. The 135 letters that Wharton wrote Bahlmann over the course of forty-two years reveal the loyalty and influence that had developed between the two women, as well as Wharton's maturation.