The Diary and Life of William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674-1744

The Diary and Life of William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674-1744
Title The Diary and Life of William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674-1744 PDF eBook
Author Kenneth A. Lockridge
Publisher Omohundro Institute and Unc Press
Pages 224
Release 1987
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN

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This eloquent and provocative essay describes the emergence of a Virginia gentleman. Sent to England for an education, William Byrd II soon learned to emulate the ideals of English gentility. In 1704 the thirty-year-old Byrd inherited his father's estates in Virginia, but he lived in England for much of the next twenty-five years pursuing his political ambitions. Thwarted in his efforts to obtain either the position to which he aspired or a wealthy bride, Byrd finally faced personal and financial ruin. Only then did he come to be both literally and figuratively at home in Virginia. The story is told through Kenneth Lockridge's compelling reading of a seemingly intractable source: Byrd's secret diaries. Drawing upon psychohistory, social psychology, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism, Lockridge relates the narrative of a single life, of a person struggling for realization within the context of a Virginia aristocracy itself striving for a mature conception of its role. He captures the essence of what it was to become a Virginia gentleman, and the terrible price leading Virginians paid for the eventual success of their class. In the process, Lockridge demonstrates how a close reading of literary texts can reveal large historical themes. He explores the politics of the eighteenth-century colonial and imperial world and reveals the exact moment at which a matured colonial gentry seized the initiative from its British masters -- fifty years before the Revolution.

The Commonplace Book of William Byrd II of Westover

The Commonplace Book of William Byrd II of Westover
Title The Commonplace Book of William Byrd II of Westover PDF eBook
Author Kevin Joel Berland
Publisher UNC Press Books
Pages 336
Release 2012-12-01
Genre History
ISBN 0807839116

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William Byrd II (1674-1744) was an important figure in the history of colonial Virginia: a founder of Richmond, an active participant in Virginia politics, and the proprietor of one of the colony's greatest plantations. But Byrd is best known today for his diaries. Considered essential documents of private life in colonial America, they offer readers an unparalleled glimpse into the world of a Virginia gentleman. This book joins Byrd's Diary, Secret Diary, and other writings in securing his reputation as one of the most interesting men in colonial America. Edited and presented here for the first time, Byrd's commonplace book is a collection of moral wit and wisdom gleaned from reading and conversation. The nearly six hundred entries range in tone from hope to despair, trust to dissimulation, and reflect on issues as varied as science, religion, women, Alexander the Great, and the perils of love. A ten-part introduction presents an overview of Byrd's life and addresses such topics as his education and habits of reading and his endeavors to understand himself sexually, temperamentally, and religiously, as well as the history and cultural function of commonplacing. Extensive annotations discuss the sources, background, and significance of the entries.

The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712

The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712
Title The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712 PDF eBook
Author William Byrd
Publisher
Pages 672
Release 1941
Genre Gentry
ISBN

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A transcription from the original shorthand of the first part of Byrd's diary now in the Henry E. Huntington Library. Parts covering the period from December 13, 1717, to May 19, 1721, and from August 10, 1739, to August 31, 1741, are located in the Virginia Historical Society and the University of North Carolina Library respectively. cf. Introd.

The London Diary, 1717-1721

The London Diary, 1717-1721
Title The London Diary, 1717-1721 PDF eBook
Author William Byrd
Publisher
Pages 658
Release 2012-06-01
Genre
ISBN 9781258411411

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The Dividing Line Histories of William Byrd II of Westover

The Dividing Line Histories of William Byrd II of Westover
Title The Dividing Line Histories of William Byrd II of Westover PDF eBook
Author Kevin Joel Berland
Publisher UNC Press Books
Pages 527
Release 2013-11-01
Genre History
ISBN 1469606941

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After his 1728 Virginia-North Carolina boundary expedition, Virginia planter and politician William Byrd II composed two very different accounts of his adventures. The Secret History of the Line was written for private circulation, offering tales of scandalous behavior and political misconduct, peppered with rakish humor and personal satire. The History of the Dividing Line, continually revised by Byrd for decades after the expedition, was intended for the London literary market, though not published in his lifetime. Collating all extant manuscripts, Kevin Joel Berland's landmark scholarly edition of these two histories provides wide-ranging historical and cultural contexts for both, helping to recreate the social and intellectual ethos of Byrd and his time. Byrd enriched his narratives with material appropriated from earlier authors, many of whose works were in his library--the most extensive in the American colonies. Berland identifies for the first time many of Byrd's sources and raises the question: how reliable are histories that build silently upon antecedent texts and present borrowed material as firsthand testimony? In his analysis, Berland demonstrates the need for a new category to assess early modern history writing: the hybrid, accretional narrative.

The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose

The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose
Title The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose PDF eBook
Author Henry Cabot Lodge
Publisher
Pages 298
Release 1909
Genre American literature
ISBN

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Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom

Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom
Title Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom PDF eBook
Author Rhys Isaac
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 489
Release 2005-09-29
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN 0195189086

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In this long-awaited work, Isaac mines the diary of a Revolutionary War-era Virginia planter--and many other sources--to reconstruct his interior world as it plunged into turmoil.