Literary Charleston: A Lowcountry Reader - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 094171117X ISBN 13: 9780941711173

Publisher: Gibbs Smith, 1996

Synopsis

To describe our growing up in the lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, "There. That taste. That's the taste of my childhood." I would say. "Breathe deeply," and you would breathe and remember tjat smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite ans sensual, the smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater. My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of indrawn tides. I am a patriot of a singular geography on the planet; I speak of my country religiously; I am proud of its landscape. I walk through the traffic of cities cautiously, always nimble and on the alert, because my heart belongs in the marshlands. The boy in me still carries the memories of those days when I lifted crab pots out of the Colleton River before dawn, when I ws shaped by life on the river, part child, part saristan of tides.

About this title

From the Back Cover

To describe our growing up in the lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, "There. That taste. That's the taste of my childhood." I would say. "Breathe deeply," and you would breathe and remember tjat smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite ans sensual, the smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater. My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of indrawn tides.
I am a patriot of a singular geography on the planet; I speak of my country religiously; I am proud of its landscape. I walk through the traffic of cities cautiously, always nimble and on the alert, because my heart belongs in the marshlands. The boy in me still carries the memories of those days when I lifted crab pots out of the Colleton River before dawn, when I ws shaped by life on the river, part child, part saristan of tides.
Pat Conroy, from The Princes of Tides

From the Inside Flap

Literary Charleston: A Lowcountry Reader Curtis Worthington Charleston and the surrounding lowcountry of South Carolina have stimulated a host of literary endeavors and accomplishments. In this amthology, Editor Worthington has assembled a chronological selection of generous excerpts from some of the best writers who haved lived in CHarleston and/or used it as a locale, including William Bartram, William Gilmore Simms, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Amy Lowell, Owen Wister, DuBose Heyward, Josephine Humphreys, James Dickey, Pat Conroy, and others. A Forward by distinguished scholar and author Louis D. Rubin, Jr. and a Indroduction by the editor provide an overview of Charleston's rich literary history and a reationale for the inclusion of the authors and the works in this anthology. Back Flap Copy About the Editor Curtis Worthington brought up in Charleston, South Carolina and is descended from the Calhoun, Pickens, and other notable South Carolina families. Educated in Montreal, South Florida, and Oxford, he is the author of occasional critical writing and literary history. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors. In 1967, he received the "Skylark Prize" from the Poetry Society of South Carolina. He has traveled extensively in Europe, the Pacific and southeast Asia and is a practicing neurosurgeon in Charleston. Cover Art: Charleston--The Celebrated Southern Port Iver The Rooftops in 1870 by John Stobart. Reproduced by permission of the artist.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Paul Hamilton Hayne
Aspects of the Pines
Tall, sombre, grim, against the morning sky
They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,

Edition details

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 094171117X
• ISBN 13: 9780941711173
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432
• Editor: Curtis Worthington