William Alexander Caruthers
Born1802
Rockbridge County, Virginia
Died1846
Savannah, Georgia
EducationWashington and Lee University
University of Pennsylvania
OccupationNovelist
RelativesArchibald Alexander (uncle)

William Alexander Caruthers (1802–1846) was an American novelist.

Biography

William Alexander Caruthers was born in 1802 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. His uncle, Archibald Alexander, served as the fourth President of Hampden–Sydney College.[1] He was educated at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) and later in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.[1] In 1837 he moved to Savannah, Georgia, where he resided until his death in 1846.[2]

Career

Caruthers' first novel, The Kentuckian In New York, published in 1834, is important for expressing skepticism about slavery, as well as arguing that termination was impractical at that point. The novel includes a subplot about a narrowly avoided slave revolt, which was likely influenced by Nat Turner's rebellion. Some credit a short inclusion of a letter by a slave in Arabic as influencing a similar subplot in Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). His later and somewhat better known works include The Cavaliers of Virginia, or the Recluse of Jamestown and The Knights of the Horse Shoe, a romanticized retelling of the historic Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, also known as the Transmontane Expedition.

Bibliography

  • The Kentuckian in New-York; or, The Adventures of Three Southerns, by a Virginian (1834)
  • Cavaliers of Virginia; or, The Recluse of Jamestown. An Historical Romance of the Old Dominion (1834–1835, released in two parts)
  • The Knights of the Golden Horse-Shoe, a Traditionary Tale of the Cocked Hat Gentry in the Old Dominion (1835)

References

  1. 1 2 Hurt, Matthew. "William Alexander Caruthers (1802–1846)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 11 Oct 2020.
  2. ↑ Cartwright, Keith (2004). Reading Africa Into American Literature: Epics, Fables, and Gothic Tales. The University Press of Kentucky. pp. 160–161. ISBN 9780813158334. Retrieved 8 July 2015.

Further reading

  • Carroll Davis, Curtis (1947). "Chronicler of the Cavaliers: Some Letters from and to William Alexander Caruthers, M. D. (1802-1846)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 55 (3): 213–232. JSTOR 4245489.
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