More panoramic in scope and more realistic in its details than Crane's Red Badge of Courage, this is one of the first and best novels ever written about the American Civil War Drawing on his own combat experience with the Union forces, John W. De Forest crafted a war novel like nothing before it in the annals of American literature. His first-hand knowledge of "the wilderness of death" made its way on to the pages of his riveting novel with devastating effect. Whether depicting the tedium before combat, the unspoken horror of battle, or the grisly butchery of the field hospital, De Forest broke new ground, anticipating the realistic war writings of Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and Tim O'Brien. A commercial failure in its own day, De Forest's story was praised by Henry James and William Dean Howells, who, comparing it favorably to War and Peace, acclaimed the book "one of the best American novels ever written." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (Penguin Classics)

Literature & Fiction

De Forest, John W.

United States

Penguin Classics

Kate Beaumont

Pennsylvania State Univ Pr

Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

History & Criticism

Scholarly Pr

History Of The Indians Of Connecticut: From The Earliest Known Period To 1850

Literary

Kessinger Publishing

Miss Ravenel's Conversion From Secession To Loyalty (1867)

Contemporary

Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (John W. De Forest Collected Works)

Genre Fiction

Reprint Services Corp

John William De Forest (1826-1906), a native of Connecticut, enjoyed a long career as a prolific writer, mainly of fiction. During the Civil War he was a captain in the 12th Connecticut Volunteers, taking part in the capture of New Orleans, the Port Hudson campaign, and the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia. After the war, he served as a subassistant district commissioner for the Freedmen's Bureau in Greenville, South Carolina. A Volunteer's Adventures, first published in 1946, is De Forest's vivid description of his experiences at war. It consists of letters to his wife during his service, supplemented by six articles published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine and Galaxy between 1864 and 1868. De Forest intended to compile these pieces into a book but never did. James H. Croushore finally accomplished the task, adding chapter divisions with introductory notes to give form and continuity to the whole. The result is a first-rate personal war narrative - recently named one of the one hundred finest Civil War books by Civil War magazine - more than half of which deals with Louisiana from De Forest's Yankee perspective.

A Volunteer's Adventures: A Union Captain's Record of the Civil War

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Louisiana State Univ Pr

Beginning in 1866, John William De Forest served fifteen months as an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau in Greenville, South Carolina. After he left the army, he wrote a series of magazine articles about the bureau's operation as it intersected with the daily lives of freedmen. In 1948 the articles were compiled in A Union Officer in the Reconstruction, which offers a deft analysis of the structure of southern society after the war.

A Union Officer in the Reconstruction

History

Americas

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