The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955 Page: 457
650 p. : ill., maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
lished. With the appearance of these volumes, an important chap-
ter in the American literary scene will have to be rewritten.
Simms is finally approaching his proper place in American his-
tory and literature.
A. S. Salley has contributed a short sketch of Simms' life, in
which he has brought into play a rich knowledge of Simms
gained from almost a lifetime interest in him. As if all these aids
were not sufficient to smooth out the road of the readers of these
volumes, short biographical sketches have been added of the
so-called "Simms' Circle," giving pertinent facts in the lives of
Simms' correspondents. These sketches are extremely helpful in
understanding Simms and his times. And not to leave anything
undone which should be done, even in the eyes of the most
meticulous, there has been added a short section on "The
Negroes at Woodlands," which gives a general description of the
slaves on Simms' plantation and of the freedmen after the war.
In the two volumes here reviewed there are 518 letters, each
letter being given in a list of owners or depositories at the be-
ginning of each volume. To those persons who want Simms in
the flesh and blood with his heartbeats recording his joys and
his sorrows and his fine appreciation of his friends and his loyalty
to them, his artistic temperament calling for approbation and
adulation and resentful of criticism, especially if he felt that it
was undeserved-those who want this and have time to get it by
reading and absorbing these letters will have no desire for the
inevitable biography which has long been overdue, to supplant
Trent's. Who will be the author? No announcements yet, but
this resurrection of Simms in the projected five volumes of letters
will certainly lead to other volumes of biography and apprecia-
tion of Simms.
Simms spread himself out into all the interests and activities of
his day-not only in letters (poetry, romance, fiction, history)
for which, only, he is remembered today, but in politics, agri-
culture, and so on. He dabbled a little in politics, to the extent
of getting elected to the South Carolina legislature and develop-
ing an unrequited ambition to have a stint in the diplomatic
service. He was a Unionist in the Nullification movement and
never warmed up very much to Calhoun then, of course, or even
later, though Simms was an intense Southerner. Yet there has been457
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955, periodical, 1955; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101158/m1/526/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.