Simms's Last Novel, the Cub of the Panther
1985; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)American Literature and Culture
ResumoWilliam Gilmore Simms's last novel, The Cub of the Panther, was published twelve consecutive installments New York magazine The Old Guard, January-December 1869. A pro-Southern magazine, was published monthly from January-December, 1863, through December, 1870, under varying subtitles. Aptly named The Old Guard, upheld white supremacy, secession, anti-abolitionism, and frequently entered into literary disagreements, notably concerning Harriet Beecher Stowe. It contained non-fiction, book reviews, short editorials, serials, and sprinkling of poetry (generally used fill out short pages). The first item each issue of volume VII (1869) ordinarily was ten-page article by the editor C. Chauncey Burr, and The Cub of the Panther was either second or third place. The magazine was, according Simms, without much circulation, but paid me modest quid. (1) Two years earlier Simms had published Jocelyn its pages, and several of his poems appeared it. The back cover throughout 1869 promised a series of original sketches of Indian life and character by Simms; this series, never published, must have consisted of his Indian legends, many of which he had already used: Jocassee, Nagoochie, Keowee, Toxaway, Tselica. Each issue contains five gatherings of sixteen leaves, occasionally with two or three additional leaves of advertisements at the end. It was perhaps this strict format which forced the deletion of the two chapters now existing only manuscript. The Cub of the Panther has never been republished and remains one of Simms's least known books. Yet deserves more attention than has received. Textually is one of the most interesting of all Simms's novels, for two chapters, deleted from the serial publication, still exist manuscript--the only manuscript save isolated fragments which has survived for any of his novels. And much of the source material for this tale of the North Carolina backwoods is extant, including notes made on trip the area some twenty-five years earlier. In August and September, 1847, Simms visited Spartanburg, Carolina, and the neighboring up-country tourist areas, making horseback trekamong the hunters, beyond our remotest bounds of civilization' (Letters, II, p. 351). His avowed purpose was to visit as much fine scenery, and see & hear as much as I can. I shall make book of it (Letters, II, p. 350). That book apparently was never written, but the notes made on this trip still exist. Simms drew upon them several of his later works, including Voltmeier; or, the Mountain Men, serialized 1869. Memories of this excursion contributed also Summer Travel the South (1850), How Sharp Snaffles Got His Capital and Wife (1870) and two lectures written about 1856 for northern audience. (2) But Simms found still another use for the journal entries. In writing The Cub of the Panther; A Mountain Legend 1868-1869, (3) he relied heavily on this material, many times, seems, actually having on his desk during the composition of the book. Indeed, the novel contains many statements the effect that the story was transmitted me by generation of simple hunters (Cub, p. 572) and written mostly from notes made on the spot about quarter of century ago. While there are many close relationships between the notebook and the novel, Simms often created new stories by expanding or combining already-existing ones. (4) When he returned October, 1868, from New York his plantation Woodlands, Simms had write three different stories be serialized the northern periodicals. On Christmas day, 1868, he wrote his daughter, Augusta Roach, that he was in the hands of the Publishers & they are now printing me, & I must keep pace with & advance of the Printers (Letters, V, p. 185). On that day he was engaged writing 3 romances at once. I am now about close one which reaches 1200 MS. …
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