Hardback
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Description
Drawing on her own experiences as a southern aristocrat during wartime, A Family Secret is writer and social critic Eliza Frances Andrews s fictionalized retelling of the end of her long-cherished way of life.
A best seller in both the North and South upon its original publication in 1876, the novel focuses on the plight of upper-class southern women unprepared for the challenges of post Civil War life, women Andrews described in her own diary as girls educated only for show.
At its core a love story, A Family Secret revolves around the adventures of Virginia-born Audley Malvern, descendent of one of the first families of the Old Dominion, and Ruth Harfleur, long-lost heir to a plantation fortune.
Though Andrews pointedly claimed that the novel was not an attempt to doctor public morals, her characters both lament the passing of a treasured way of life and decry the brutality of war that smothered the traits of decency and kindness.The novel draws significantly on Andrews s wartime memories.
The scene of a visit to the prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville was based on stories she had heard from visiting soldiers.
The wartime railroad train and the interaction between Confederate officers and the backwoods farmer-soldiers on whose shoulders the burden of war squarely rested have their origins in observations recorded in Andrews s journals.
A valuable portrait of the attitudes of class and racial division in the Civil War South, A Family Secret depicts the myths on which antebellum social structure rested and hints at the changes to come in the region s racial and gender roles and expectations."
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Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:336 pages
- Publisher:University of Tennessee Press
- Publication Date:30/11/2005
- Category:
- ISBN:9781572334397
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:336 pages
- Publisher:University of Tennessee Press
- Publication Date:30/11/2005
- Category:
- ISBN:9781572334397