Charles Frazier and the Books of Cold Mountain

Charles Frazier and the Books of Cold Mountain ARCHIVED ONLINE EXHIBIT Originally displayed at the Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina (August 1997) Archived October 18, 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS Archived Online Exhibit ................................................................................................................................. 1 introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Island 1 .......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Island 2 .......................................................................................................................................................... 5 Island 3 .......................................................................................................................................................... 7 Island 4 .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 Island 5 ........................................................................................................................................................ 11

INTRODUCTION This exhibit was originally mounted in August 1997 for a reception welcoming back to the University Charles Frazier, a Carolina alumnus (Ph.D. in English, 1986) and author of the bestselling novel Cold Mountain. In November 1997, it won the National Book Award, and by May of 1998, the book had spent 45 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The first three islands of the exhibit feature a range of the many literary works and other contemporary sources referred to in Dr. Frazier's novel, which is set largely in his native North Carolina during the Civil War. Quotations in the exhibit notes come from the novel itself. The fourth and fifth islands illustrate Dr. Frazier's writing career, including his earlier books, along with proofs, variant editions, publicity, and reviews of Cold Mountain. PGS

ISLAND 1 The aftermath of Fredericksburg From Harper's Weekly, 27 December 1862. "Where to begin? . . . Malvern Hill. Sharpsburg. Petersburg. Any would do admirably as example of unwelcome visions. But Fredericksburg was a day particularly lodged in his mind" (p. 6).

Winter conditions From Harper's Pictorial History of the Great Rebellion, New York: Harper, 1868.

William Bartram Travels through North and South Carolina . . . Philadelphia: James and Johnson, 1791. "He had pulled it from a box of books donated by ladies of the capital eager for the intellectual as well as the physical improvement of the patients. . . . It was not a book that required following from front to back . . . The doings of that kind lone wanderer . . . never failed to ease his thoughts" (p. 10). "Bartram was only a traveler, . . . but to Inman's mind the land stood not as he'd seen it and known it for all his life, but as Bartram had summed it up" (p. 276). From the Winyah Indigo Society Library, Georgetown, S.C.

Homer in the 19th century "It made him sad to think that Balis had spent his last days studying on the words of a fool. Then he came upon a line that seemed to have more sense to it. It was this: 'The comeliest order on earth is but a heap of random sweepings.' That, Inman decided, he could consent to" (p. 18).

Shown are an early American edition of Homer's Odyssey(Pope's translation), published in Georgetown, D.C., in 1814, and Sotheby's translation, published in 4 volumes in London in 1834, from the antebellum South Carolina College library.

Daniel Ellis Thrilling Adventures of Daniel Ellis Written by Himself New York: Harper, 1867. An account of the Home Guard's reign of terror against suspected Union sympathizers and deserters in the Appalachian mountain areas of western North Carolina and east Tennessee. From the Francis Lord Civil War Collection.

Hiding out from the Home Guard From Harper's Weekly, 19 September 1863.

ISLAND 2 G. A. Lawrence Sword and Gown London: Tinsley (Tinsley's Cheap Novels), 1871. "The books she had drawn from the shelves that summer had been varied and haphazard, little but recent novels . . . Trifles like Sword and Gown by Lawrence and others of its type" (p. 26). The British writer Lawrence, an old Rugbean, was a Southern sympathizer in Baltimore and Richmond during the War.Sword and Gown was first published in 1859. From the Barnwell-Singleton Collection donated by Mr. and Mrs. David Phillips.

George Eliot The Mill on the Floss First edition, 3 volumes. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1860. "For a time every book she plucked from the shelves frightened her, their contents all concerning mistakes made by wretched dark-haired women so that they ended their days punished, exiled, alien. . . . The Mill on the Floss" (p. 26).

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter, a Romance First edition. Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. "A slim and troubling tale by Hawthorne. . . . She guessed Monroe would have found the book unnecessarily grim, but to Ada it seemed good practice for her coming world. No matter what the book, though, the characters all seemed to lead fuller lives than she did" (p. 26). Rebound, but shown with a copy of the second edition, in original binding.

Charles Dickens Little Dorrit In parts. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1855-57.

"They drank cup after cup and stayed up most of the night . . . at one point Ada retold the entire thrilling plot of Little Dorrit, one of the books she had read during the summer" (p. 79).

George Eliot Adam Bede First edition, 3 vols. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1859. "At the stationer's, Ada paid more than she could afford for Adam Bede in three volumes" (p. 139). "The book did not go well. She could not keep her mond on it" (p. 258). Was it the War that forced Ada to choose this expensive British three-decker, rather than the cheap one-volume American counterpart bought by Mrs. C. D. Melton of Columbia (New York: Harper, 1859, also displayed)?

William Shakespeare A Midsummer-Night's Dream London: John Cumberland, 1828. "Out from under the shade of the porch she could see that there was yet light enough to read a few pages from Midsummer Night's Dream, . . . when she got to a line of Robin's--where he says, 'Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn'--Ruby was immensely amused" (p. 193). Shown with an 1856 edition of the same play, which drastically cut this scene with the rude mechanicals.

ISLAND 3 R. W. Emerson The Conduct of Life Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860. "Ada and Monroe sat by the fire, . . . Ada reading to him from a new book, The Conduct of Life. . . . He thought Emerson was always, even in old age, perhaps one degree more extreme in his spiritual views than was called for" (p. 153).

The portraits of 1861 "Such little mechanical portraits were not rare . . . In sixty-one, any soldier with a dollar and seventy-five cents in his pocket could have his aspect recorded in the form of ambrotype, tintype, calotype, or daguerreotype" (p. 194). From Walter Clark, Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War (1901).

The Southern Literary Messenger "She read from the latest number of the North American Review, and when that failed to engage her she rifled through Monroe's old issues of the Dial and the Southern Literary Messenger" (p. 200).

Fair Margaret and Sweet William "The words to the song, though, were no lullaby. They linked up to make a horrible story, a murder ballad called Fair Margaret and Sweet William. It was an old song" (p. 253). The ballad has been known from at least the early sixteenth century and was printed in the later eighteenth century by such collectors as Joseph Ritson and Thomas Percy. Shown here are versions from David Herd's Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs (Edinburgh, 1769, from the G. Ross Roy Collection), and from Joseph Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads (London, 1829, from the antebellum South Carolina College library).

Baucis and Philemon "The children begged for a story. Ada took a book from her apron and tipped it towards the firelight and read. Baucis and Philemon" (p. 356). In classical legend, an elderly couple, Baucis and Philemon, entertained visiting gods in their cottage and were rewarded with a long and happy old age. On their near simultaneous death, they were transformed into intertwined trees, the oak and the linden. The story occurs in Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 8, and in La Fontaine's Fables, but is shown here from Swift's poetic version, in The Beauties of Swift (Dublin, 1783).

ISLAND 4 Robert W. Ingram and Charles R. Frazier Developing Communications Skills for the Accounting Profession Accounting education series, no. 5 Sarasota, Fla. : American Accounting Association, c1980. Original wrappers. Frazier's first book was this practical manual co-written with a professor in USC's College of Business Administration.

Charles Frazier, with Donald Secreast Adventuring in the Andes : The Sierra Club Travel Guide to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, the Amazon Basin, and the Galapagos Islands San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, c1985. Fourth printing. Original pictorial wrappers. Following coursework at USC, Frazier and his wife moved to Colorado. Among the travel writing he undertook there was this second book, also co-authored.

Charles R. Frazier The Geography of Possibility: Man in the Landscape in Recent Western Fiction Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina, 1986. Original red library buckram. Signed by the author. Following an introductory essay, this 257-page dissertation devotes chapters to the writings of Edward Abbey, Thomas McGuane, James Crumley, Barry Holsten Lopez, Elizabeth Tallent and Douglas Unger.

Charles Frazier "Licit Pursuits" The Best of the West 2: New Short Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, ed. James & Denise Thomas (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith [Peregrine Smith], 1989), 213-22. This story, told from the viewpoint of a lone nineteenth-century lawman, tells of his ride across country to capture a murderer, his struggle in the woods to escape on foot from his armed and mounted quarry, his dramatic arrest of the murderer at the man's wedding in a small country church, and the technique with which he hanged his captive

from a tree-branch in the road outside. The story was originally published in Kansas Quarterly19.3 (Winter/Spring 1987).

Charles Frazier Cold Mountain New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, [1997]. Uncorrected advance proof of 368 pages, rather strangely labelled on the front cover and title-page "Uncorrected manuscript." Original glazed pictorial wrappers. At the head of the title is "ver 97.1.14." The title announces "to be published in Spring 1997," while the back cover (with a blurb and bio note not used for the first edition dustjacket) indicates a probable publication date of June.

Cold Mountain Publisher's promotional card for first edition. Signed by the author. The front of the card reproduces the front dustjacket, while the reverse carries a short quote from John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

ISLAND 5 Charles Frazier Cold Mountain New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997. First edition, first printing, signed. Map of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains on endpapers. Original black quarter cloth, dark blue boards. On the pictorial dust jacket, the back cover presents pre-publication praise by Kaye Gibbons, Rick Bass, Ann Beattie, and Willie Morris. The front flap quotes Larry Brown and substantially revises the original blurb from the advance review copies. The author-note on the back flap is similarly revised, while a silver sticker on the front cover prints praise from John Berendt. Gift of Dr. Ronald Bridwell, Immediate Past President, Thomas Cooper Society.

Charles Frazier Cold Mountain N.p.: Twenty-third Avenue Books & First Choice Books, 1997. This broadside was produced to commemorate one of the author's early readings from his novel. A total of 126 copies were printed, 26 lettered A-Z and 100 numbered 1-100; this is number 27.

Charles Frazier Cold Mountain London: Sceptre, 1997. First British edition, fourth printing. Wrappered issue. Original pictorial wrappers. Frazier flew to London in July 1997 for the British launch of the book, which was first issued there in large-format paperback, before hardback.

Charles Frazier Cold Mountain New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997. Printings differ in a reading that occurs on page 25 of the published novel. The word "manwoman" in the advance proofs acquired a hyphen in the first printing, and this was altered further to "madwoman" in subsequent printings. The illustrations are from the advance proofs, the first printing, and the thirteenth printing.

Charles Frazier Cold Mountain Hampton Falls, N.H. : Beeler Large Print, c1997. Not shown. The original exhibit included a large print edition, primarily sold to libraries for older readers, with the text of first printing.

Charles Frazier Cold Mountain New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997. 21st printing. Following the National Book Award announcement, the gold award seal shown here was substituted for the earlier silver seal with the Berendt quote. This copy also shows a typical chain store sticker, this one advertising Books-aMillion's 40% discount to club members. While the initial sales impetus for Cold Mountain came from the enthusiasm of smaller, independent booksellers, especially in the South, mass discount sales came through the larger chains (Barnes & Noble, Crown, Books-a-Million, etc.) and even general discount stores (Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, etc.). By 1998, the market-share of independent booksellers had reportedly fallen to 17%. The Vintage Contemporaries trade paperback, delayed in publication till August 18 1998 because of continuing sales of the hardback, uses the same front jacket design, with the National Book Award seal, with the addition of "#1 National Bestseller" at the head and a quote from Newsweek at the foot. The endpaper maps are included after the titlepage and epigraphs. A final ad leaf draws attention to the two audio versions of the book, both published by Random House: an unabridged version (14 1/2 hours) read by Frazier himself, and an abridge 3 hour one, read by Dylan Baker.

Reviews of Cold Mountain The image includes Newsweek's article on Frazier from the 28 July 1997 issue, Polly Paddock Gossett's article on Frazier from the Raleigh News and Observer, George Will's Washington Postarticle on America's literary marketplace (with substantial reference to Frazier), and the bestsellers list from the 31 August 1997 issue of the New York Times Book Reviewshowing Cold Mountain at the top of the fiction list.