The Doom of Ravenswood

Archibald Rutledge

Description

Archibald Rutledge's story "The Doom of Ravenswood" is a harrowing account of the power of the natural world and of the dangers for humans and animals alike to be found in the ominous swamps of the South Carolina lowcountry. As the narrator of this cautionary tale is riding home astride his faithful horse, Redbird, to Ravenswood Plantation, he is compelled to stop along the isolated road to pick wildflowers. But the untamed wilderness has laid a trap for the traveler, and he quickly finds himself sinking helplessly into the inescapable pull of the morass. With Redbird his only ally in this deadly predicament and with fate and nature set squarely against him, the narrator must use his wits if he is to survive.

The short story "The Doom of Ravenswood" was written for publication in an early twentieth-century boy's magazine and was first collected in the privately printed Eddy Press edition of Old Plantation Days (c. 1913). Limited to just a few hundred copies, the Eddy Press edition is highly prized by Rutledge collectors and includes these four stories—"Claws," "The Doom of Ravenswood," "The Egret's Plumes," and "The Ocean's Menace"—not found in the more widely available 1921 Stokes edition of Old Plantation Days.

A project of South Carolina Humanities benefiting the South Carolina literary programs, this new edition of The Doom of Ravenswood is illustrated in handsome charcoal etchings by southern artist Stephen Chesley. Award-winning outdoors writer and noted Rutledge scholar Jim Casada provides the volume's introduction and Lillian Smith Award-winning writer William Baldwin offers an afterword.

Sujets

• Plants
• Themes
• Subjects
• Adventure (Guyana)
• Literature
• Adventure Tales
• John Burroughs Medal
• Boy's Own Paper
• Mortal Fear
• Verisimilitude
• Underpinning
• Wildlife
• Allegory
• Poetry
• Wild Life
• Nature writing
• Art
• Animals
• Adventure
• Publication
• Suggestion
• Indication
• Prose

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611175998
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Doom of Ravenswood
The Doom of Ravenswood

A RCHIBALD R UTLEDGE
Introduction by Jim Casada
Afterword by Charles W. Waring III
Illustrations by Stephen Chesley

T HE U NIVERSITY OF S OUTH C AROLINA P RESS
A Project of the Humanities Council SC
2015 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN : 978-1-61117-570-7 (cloth)
ISBN : 978-1-61117-571-4 (leather)
ISBN : 978-1-61117-599-8 (ebook)
Front cover illustration by Stephen Chesley
Contents
Introduction
Jim Casada
The Doom of Ravenswood
Afterword
Charles W. Waring
Introduction
Jim Casada
A RCHIBALD H AMILTON R UTLEDGE (1883-1973) quite possibly ranks as South Carolina s most prolific literary figure ever. Even more impressive than the scores of books, hundreds of articles, and thousands of poems he published is the diversity of his literary output.