Southern literature
--‘"We are glad to notice,"’ says the "the commencement of publishing in the
South, particularly in the city of
Richmond where the firm of
Messrs. West &
Johnston have already taken the lead in giving to the public works by Southern authors.
Heretofore, the want at home of anything like a Southern publishers.
They would never touch anything Southern on their own accounts, as long as they could make their dollars and cents out of the printed trash of
Yanks books and periodicals.
They complained that our people would not read Southern books, when the fact was that they themselves had educated this taste by turning the cold shoulder to Southern authors, and stocking their shelves with '
Cobb's' last story, and the miscellanies of Ann street. Many of these publishers are still behind the time in responding to the literary demands of the people; and we notice that some of them are still trying to palm off their old stock of prurient Yankee books and old novels by advertising them at half price.
"If we are over going to have an independent Southern literature we will have it now. The war will produce it, not only by the constraints of non-intercourse, but by furnishing a new and boundless field for Southern authorship in its history and literature.
Never were more abundant topics for literary labor and genius than will be furnished by a war involving so many principles of historical truth, supplied with all the dramatic elements of civil dissension, and containing so many resources of romance in the character of its individuals and the composition of its armies.
It is early yet for these topics to engage the labors of authors and the imaginations of poets beyond the columns of the daily press.
But we do not doubt that the war will yet work out its final results, and that among these will be the expression of a new literature as a fluent and brilliant in its conceptions as it will be rich in its materials.
"We notice that
Messrs. West &
Johnston, the commendably enterprising
Richmond publishers, have already commenced the work, to which, we understand, they will their well-known and well-recognized enterprise in the book trade, of building up an independent Southern literature.
They have inaugurated the season by offering to the public two Southern books--
Cause and
Contrast; an essay on the
American crisis of 1861: By T. W.
MacMahon--A work which cannot fail of arresting public attention and winning the widest range of approbation.
They have recently published, also--The Southern Spy; a series of letters by an American author, who, wielding the caustic quill of a second
Junius, devotes his talents to an exposition of
Washington politics and the real intention of the
Lincoln Government.
‘"Indeed, the Messrs.
West &
Johnston have entitled themselves to great credit in their admirable list of military publications, some of which they have got out in a style of execution equal to any of the issues of Boston and New York houses.
Their enterprise, in these respects, is a contribution to the cause of our arms, and of our independence, which we hope will be rewarded by the
Southern public to their fullest satisfaction."’
