This is the first complete and thoroughly researched study of the poet's life. Though often neglected today, South Carolinian Henry Timrod (1828-1867) ranks with Poe and Lanier as the finest of nineteenth-century Southern poets. While much of Timrod's best work was inspired by nature or romance, the coming of secession and war stirred him deeply. It can truly be said that his wartime described Timrod's verse as very powerful & impressive, concluding that his poetry belonged in every cultivated home in the United States. Whittier looked for the day when no sectional feeling will interfere with the recognition of his genius. Walter Brian Cisco's authority derives from research in many manuscript collections; the careful examination of letters, newspapers, documents, and other primary sources. Walter Brian Cisco is an independent scholar.

This book contains all of Timrod's essays and editorials that deal with literature. It includes William J. Grayson's neoclassical essay on poetry, since Timrod answered that attack on romanticism. A long introduction treats Timrod's work as critic, with a consideration of his reading and of the ideas that influenced his poetry.

This edition of the uncollected poems of Timrod more than doubles the number of poems formerly collected. Together, this book and the Memorial Edition present in competent texts all of his known poetry. The editor has included only poems signed with the poet's name or with his pseudonym, unless special evidence was available. Such evidence for testing authenticity is given in footnotes.

An important figure in the literature of the antebellum South, Henry Timrod was a member of the literary group of Charleston, South Carolina. This book is a variorum edition of Timrod's major poetry, arranged as nearly as possible in chronological order. A "Notes and Variants" section provides detailed information in a set pattern: the record of publication of each poem, explanatory comments, variant readings, and occasionally a commentary by an earlier critic. The editors have included a biographical and critical Introduction.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.