shrewd widow Eveleigh in Woodcraft.nThe essay by Blythe on The CassiquenofKiawah and that on Woodcraftnby James B. Meriwether, the scholarnwho has been responsible for bringingna number of Simms’s books back intonprint, are the most important perhapsnof a number of good essays in thisncollection, focusing as they do withnconsiderable depth and insight onnSimms’s two more enduring books.nWoodcraft, as Meriwether shows, is anstudy, at the same time profound andnhumorous, of the difficult process ofnrestoring social order in South Carolinanafter the guerrilla civil warfare of thenRevolution, told through the experiencesnof Captain Porgy, a Rabelaisiannmember of the lesser gentry. Anyn. Southerner will recognize CaptainnPorgy as an archetypal character ofnhigh authenticity. Woodcraft displaysnSimms’s historical and social perceptionsnat their most complex.nAnother aspect of Simms’s worknusefully explicated in this collection isnhis relationship to the genre known asnbackwoods humor. In this connectionnare the essays by Linda E. McDanielnon Paddy McGann and Mary AnnnWimsatt on Simms’s short fiction. PaddynMcGann, one of Simms’s late creations,nwas a South Carolina river boatman,ncandid and self-assertive in thentradition of the frontier, who by a seriesnof fantastic adventures is transported ton28/CHRONICLESnNew York where he observes the literarynsociety of the day and undergoesnhaunting experiences of the supernaturalnreality of evil. Among the shortnstories, “Sharp Snaffles: How He GotnHis Capital and His Wife” is surely anneglected masterpiece of 19th-centurynAmerican writing. It is the story of anlandless North Carolina mountaineer’snstruggle to establish himself as a mannand a member of his community. Asnthe essayists show, these works containnseriously conceived and crafted elementsnof the exuberant fantasy andnhumor of the American tall tale, interwovennwith moral struggle and socialncriticism and a mature understandingnof the human condition. No one whonis familiar with these works can dismissnSimms as a mere shallow defender ofnthe aristocracy.nAmong the biographical essays, thenmore noteworthy are Miriam J. Shillingsburgnon Simms’s last lecture tournin the North in 1856, an eye-openingnaccount of the literary politics that havenbeen previously mentioned, and annanalysis by David Moltke-Hansen ofnthe development of Simms’s understandingnof American history. Simms’snachievements in the realm of historynare certainly another area of unjustnneglect.nMuch of Simms’s fiction was profoundlynhistorical. He also wrote historynand biography, and he thoughtnnndeeply and originally about the stormynrelationship between historical fact andnliterary art, as may be seen by perusingnhis collected essays (1845) Views andnReviews in American Literature: Historynand Fiction. In the collectionnunder review new ground is broken innNicholas G. Meriwether’s essay onnThe Lily and the Totem, a failed butninteresting attempt by Simms to combinenhistory and fiction in a new genre.nIt is perhaps not too much to say that innhis theory and practice Simms anticipatednsome of the most creative historicalnwriters of our own time—JohnnLukacs, Solzhenitsyn, George Garrett,nShelby R)ote — in a testing of thenfrontier between fact and art and anrealization of the dead end of so-callednobjective history.nI have made some rather sweepingnassertions about the rightful place ofnWilliam Gilmore Simms in Americannletters which the 12 essayists, or manynof them, will not necessarily endorse.nThey are a good deal more circumspect,nmodest, and scholarly in puttingnforth his claims than I have been,nthough most would agree that hisnstanding ought to be higher than it is.nYou are free to disagree with me, but Inwill not take you seriously until younhave read Woodcraft, The Cassique ofnKiawah, Paddy McGann, “SharpnSnaffles,” and Views and Reviews innAmerican Literature. If you have not,nyou do not know Simms. You do notnreally know 19th-century Americannliterature.nThe writers of the essays would notnnecessarily agree, either, with the descriptionnof 19th-century literary politicsnwith which I introduced my discussion.nYet surely Simms’s neglect, ifnsuch it is, reflects more than an accidentalnoverlooking of one writer. Itnreflects a particular partisan heritage ofnideological, not literary, judgmentsnwhich possibly ought to be exposednand reexamined.nThe title of the introductory essaynby the editor of this collection, John C.nGuilds, makes a statement and poses anquestion: “Long Years of Neglect:nAtonement at Last?” The statement isnundoubtedly true. The question remainsnto be answered, though thisnvolume marshals a powerful and pertinentncase for reparations.nn