Georgia Scenes

This Illustrated Volume Was Published In 1897. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet Was Born In Augusta Georgia On September 22 1790. He Left His Southern Home To Attend Yale University Where He Entertained Others With Stories Of His Georgia Youth. After Graduating In 1813 Longstreet Studied Law For Two Years At Tapping Reeves' Law School In Litchfield Connecticut Before Gaining Admittance To The Georgia State Bar In 1815. He Was Elected To The State Legislature In 1821. Named A Superior Court Judge Of The Ocmulgee District Longstreet Traveled The Back Roads Of Rural Georgia On Horseback For Three Years To Visit The Courthouses Within His District. However The Sudden Deaths Of His Eldest Son And Mother-In-Law In 1824 Caused Him To Retreat From Public Life And Turn To Farming And Religious Study. In 1827 He Returned With His Family To Augusta Where He Resumed His Law Practice And Began Writing Humorous Sketches Of Frontier Georgia. He Purchased The North American Gazette In 1834 Which He Renamed The State Rights' Sentinel. After Publishing Several Of His Humorous Sketches In The Sentinel He Used The Paper'S Printing Press To Self-Publish A Collection Of Nineteen Sketches Titled Georgia Scenes Characters Incidents &C. In The First Half Of The Republic (1835). Though Longstreet Would Later Be Ordained A Methodist Minister And Serve As President Of Several Southern Colleges He Is Best Known For Documenting Rural Georgian Life And Inaugurating The Literary Style Of Old Southwest Humor That Mark Twain Would Later Make Famous. He Died In Oxford Mississippi On July 9 1870. Longstreet Experienced The South At The Turn Of The Nineteenth Century And Wrote And Published His Most Significant Work Georgia Scenes (1835) To Capture Rural Georgia As He Remembered It. He Was Ahead Of His Time As Both A Literary Realist And A Writer Of Local Color And Dialect Imbuing His Work With Regional Characteristics As A Means Of Documenting Georgia'S Rapidly Disappearing Frontier. While Noting In His Preface That He Hoped Georgia Scenes Would Find Its Rightful Appreciation In Posterity Longstreet Likewise Strove For And Succeeded In Entertaining His Contemporary Readers With His Humorous Anecdotes And Hand-Drawn Illustrations Depicting Brawls Horse Trading Foxhunting Local Militia Drills And Characters From All Levels Of Georgia Society. The Two Primary Narrators In Georgia Scenes Lyman Hall And Abraham Baldwin Are Polished Town Gentlemen Who Frequently Interact With And Observe Characters Whose Manners And Customs Longstreet Associated With Hardy Pioneering Georgian Settlers. In Documenting Their Qualities Longstreet Seems To Celebrate Their Tenacity Of Spirit Rather Than Judging Them By Class. Yet On The Whole These Witty Characterizations Do Suggest Longstreet'S Interest In Refining The Manners And Tastes Of Rural Southerners As Well As Americans At Large. Edgar Allen Poe In A Glowing Review For The Southern Literary Messenger In March 1836 Touted Longstreet'S Cleverness And Credited Him With An Exquisitely Discriminating And Penetrating Understanding Of Character In General And Of Southern Character In Particular. Poe Predicted That Longstreet Might Be A Sign Of Better Days Ahead For Southern Literature. This Proved To Be The Case For Within Longstreet'S Lifetime Mark Twain Began His Famous Literary Career In Southern Satire. Additionally Georgia Scenes Serves As An Historical Glimpse Into The Manners And Morals Practiced Throughout All Levels Of Georgian Society In The Early 1800S. Though Not All Of Longstreet'S Stories Were Based On True Events He Claimed That It Would Be Difficult To A Find A Word In His Book That Was Not Strictly Georgian. ** **....Summary From Docsouth.Unc.Edu