The Surveyor's Chain (Paperback)

David A. Nelms

ISBN 13: 9798182700221

Published by Chain & Cypress Press, 2026

About this Item

Paperback. In the Mississippi Delta of 1887, surveyor Silas Vale trusts one thing above all else: a measurement properly taken.Then a routine boundary dispute leads him to six worthless acres that refuse to measure correctly.His chain is true. His stakes have not moved. Yet the distance changes.With Isaiah Cole beside him, Silas begins documenting what should be impossible. The deeper they measure, the stranger the evidence becomes: a dead patch of earth, records that seem to remember events before they happen, a house where no house should stand, and a boundary that behaves less like a line on the land than something deliberately drawn around it.But Hollow Acre does not reveal itself all at once. It waits. It repeats. And it remembers.Set against the landscape and history of the late-nineteenth-century Mississippi Delta, The Surveyor's Chain is the opening novel of The Hollow Acre Chronicles, a literary Southern Gothic saga of memory, family, history, and a place where the past may not be finished with the living.Some boundaries keep things out.Some boundaries keep things in. In 1887 Mississippi, a surveyor finds six acres that refuse to measure correctly. What begins as a boundary dispute becomes evidence that Hollow Acre remembers more than land should. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9798182700221

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Surveyor's Chain (Paperback)
• Publisher: Chain & Cypress Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798182700221
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In the Mississippi Delta of 1887, surveyor Silas Vale trusts one thing above all else: a measurement properly taken.

Then a routine boundary dispute leads him to six worthless acres that refuse to measure correctly.

His chain is true. His stakes have not moved. Yet the distance changes.

With Isaiah Cole beside him, Silas begins documenting what should be impossible. The deeper they measure, the stranger the evidence becomes: a dead patch of earth, records that seem to remember events before they happen, a house where no house should stand, and a boundary that behaves less like a line on the land than something deliberately drawn around it.

But Hollow Acre does not reveal itself all at once. It waits. It repeats. And it remembers.

Set against the landscape and history of the late-nineteenth-century Mississippi Delta, The Surveyor's Chain is the opening novel of The Hollow Acre Chronicles, a literary Southern Gothic saga of memory, family, history, and a place where the past may not be finished with the living.

Some boundaries keep things out.

Some boundaries keep things in.

About the Author

David A. Nelms is a Mississippi Delta writer and craftsman whose work draws on the history, landscapes, oral traditions, and lived character of the region. The Surveyor's Chain is the opening novel of The Hollow Acre Chronicles, a historical Southern Gothic series exploring memory, place, family, and the strange ways the past can remain present.