A boy meets a bobcat in a South Carolina swamp in this classic adventure story, now with handsome new artwork and a new foreword and introduction. Unseen by readers for a century, Archibald Rutledge’s story “Claws” is a fast-paced adventure tale of a young boy, Paul, lost in the foreboding terrain of Spencer’s Swamp, the domain of the mighty bobcat Claws, who is deftly evading hounds and hunters alike. When Paul and Claws encounter one another at a perilous creek crossing, Rutledge’s mastery of outdoors storytelling shines through in every evocative word. The short story, originally written for publication in an early twentieth-century boy’s magazine and included in a limited edition collection circa 1913, is now available as a project of South Carolina Humanities for the benefit of literary programs. This new edition of “Claws” is illustrated in handsome charcoal etchings by Southern artist Stephen Chesley. Award-winning outdoors writer and noted Rutledge scholar Jim Casada provides the volume’s introduction and retired South Carolina conservation officer Ben McC. Moïse offers an afterword. “These books remind us of Mr. Rutledge’s command of the English language, his great skills of observation of the natural world, and his fondness for distilling universal truths from stories of local essence . . . It is good to have Mr. Rutledge with us once more.” —Pat Conroy
Archibald Rutledge's story "The Doom of Ravenswood" is a harrowing account of the power of the natural world and of the dangers for humans and animals alike to be found in the ominous swamps of the South Carolina lowcountry. As the narrator of this cautionary tale is riding home astride his faithful horse, Redbird, to Ravenswood Plantation, he is compelled to stop along the isolated road to pick wildflowers. But the untamed wilderness has laid a trap for the traveler, and he quickly finds himself sinking helplessly into the inescapable pull of the morass. With Redbird his only ally in this deadly predicament and with fate and nature set squarely against him, the narrator must use his wits if he is to survive. The short story "The Doom of Ravenswood" was written for publication in an early twentieth-century boy's magazine and was first collected in the privately printed Eddy Press edition of Old Plantation Days (c. 1913). Limited to just a few hundred copies, the Eddy Press edition is highly prized by Rutledge collectors and includes these four stories—"Claws," "The Doom of Ravenswood," "The Egret's Plumes," and "The Ocean's Menace"—not found in the more widely available 1921 Stokes edition of Old Plantation Days. A project of South Carolina Humanities benefiting the South Carolina literary programs, this new edition of The Doom of Ravenswood is illustrated in handsome charcoal etchings by southern artist Stephen Chesley. Award-winning outdoors writer and noted Rutledge scholar Jim Casada provides the volume's introduction and Lillian Smith Award-winning writer William Baldwin offers an afterword.
This 1940s memoir provides a glimpse into the life and thoughts of a South Carolina plantation owner in the post-Civil War, pre-Civil Rights era. In 1937, after decades in the North, Archibald Rutledge returned to what he described as the “hyacinth days and camellia nights” of his native Carolina Lowcountry to restore his ancestral home, Hampton Plantation, which had been in his family since 1730. Originally published in 1947, these pages describe, in intimate and fascinating detail, the plantation life he found upon his return. In the simple, lyrical language of the first poet laureate of South Carolina, Rutledge portrays the black men and women, descendants of slaves, who labored alongside him in the marshes of the Santee, the stories they shared, and his interactions with them. God’s Children serves as a vivid snapshot of day-to-day activity on a plantation in the American South in the first half of the twentieth century, and of a lifestyle that was ever so slowly disappearing.
A collection of holiday tales, poems, and recipes celebrating hearth and hunt in the South of yesteryear. Carolina Christmas collects for the first time holiday stories of Archibald Rutledge (1883–1973), one of the most prolific outdoor and nature writers of the twentieth century and the first poet laureate of South Carolina. Some of Rutledge's finest writing revolves around his vivid memories of hunt, hearth, and holidays. These memories are celebrated in this keepsake collection of enduring stories and poems, further augmented with traditional recipes and food lore associated with the season. Archibald Rutledge spent decades teaching at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. All the while he supplemented his income through his writings in order to support a growing family and restoration efforts at Hampton Plantation, his ancestral home in coastal South Carolina—now a state historic site. Each Christmas, Rutledge returned to his cherished Hampton Plantation for hunting, celebrations of the season, and renewal of his decidedly Southern soul. This annual migration home meant the opportunity to enjoy hunting and communion with nature—so vitally important to him—and to renew acquaintances with those living on neighboring plantations and with the African American community he immortalized in his book God's Children. Rutledge wrote dozens of stories and poems revolving around the Hampton Hunt, fellowship with family and friends, the serenity of the winter woods, and his appetite for seasonal Southern foodways. Edited by Jim Casada, this collection highlights the very best of Rutledge's holiday tales in a vibrant tapestry through which Christmas runs as a bright, sparkling thread. In these tales of Christmas past—each representative of the author's sterling literary reputation and continuing popularity—Rutledge guides us once more into a world of traditions now largely lost. But to tread those forgotten trails once more, to sample and savor the foods he loved, and to experience vicariously the sport he so enjoyed is to experience the wonder of yesteryear.
Archibald Rutledge ranks as one of America's best-loved outdoor writers. Throughout his long, productive career he lived close to the land and had a rare knack for capturing on paper the joys of hunting, the beauty of the outdoors, and the camaraderie which lies at the heart of the sporting experience. Rutledge was a staunch son of the Southern soil, and he wrote with effective feeling of the virtues that region has always prized—honor, love of one's family, self-respect, and honesty. This volume is the first in a trilogy which will once again make available Rutledge's finest prose work. Casada, a long-time student and admirer of Rutledge, has chosen thirty-five stories which represent Rutledge at his best. To enter the world of this masterful storyteller is to share the pleasure he brought to legions of admiring readers during his lifetime.
An inspiring illustrated story that illuminates the lessons the natural world has to offer Limited Leather Numbered Edition (limited to 100 copies)Archibald Rutledge's suspenseful story "The Egret's Plumes" is a cautionary tale exalting the virtues of good sportsmanship, conservation of the natural world, and the universality of parental instincts. Fleeing the relentless plume hunters of their native Florida, a pair of exquisite snowy egrets make a new home—and then a new family—in the South Carolina lowcountry swamps of Blake's Reserve. When the male egret is killed by a poacher, the female is left to defend her nest and raise their hatchlings. Will Ormond, a restless and reckless hunter and heir to the reserve's plantation, spots the surviving egrets after a day of disappointments with his original prey. As he wades into the swamp to gain a better position for his kill shot with his only remaining cartridge, Will comes to recognize elements of his relationship with his own mother in the selfless devotion of the female egret to her young. In this moment of uncharacteristic hesitation, he also realizes that he is no longer alone in the brackish waters of the reserve and that the hunter may have become the hunted. "The Egret's Plumes" is an inspiring, allegorical narrative that illuminates the pitfalls awaiting immoral acts and the saving virtues of selflessness and compassion. This short story was written for publication in an early twentieth-century boy's magazine and was first collected in the privately printed Eddy Press edition of Old Plantation Days (c. 1913). Limited to just a few hundred copies, the Eddy Press edition is highly prized by Rutledge collectors and includes these four stories—"Claws," "The Doom of Ravenswood," "The Egret's Plumes," and "The Ocean's Menace"—not found in the more widely available 1921 Stokes edition of Old Plantation Days. A project of South Carolina Humanities benefiting South Carolina literary programs, this new edition of The Egret's Plumes is illustrated in handsome charcoal etchings by southern artist Stephen Chesley. Award-winning outdoors writer and noted Rutledge scholar Jim Casada provides the volume's introduction, and outdoors writer and author Jacob F. Rivers III offers an afterword.
Thirty-five stirring, contemplative stories of deer hunting from a winner of the John Burroughs Medal. Archibald Rutledge—renowned outdoor writer, poet laureate, and authority on whitetails—lived a rich life at Hampton Plantation in South Carolina, and had a mystical attachment to deer that found fulfillment in hunting and writing. No American sporting writer has been more persuasive in capturing the myriad, and often elusive, meanings of the hunt. According to editor Jim Casada, Rutledge has an unrivaled knack for capturing the thrill of the chase, and his ability to set a scene is such that it places the reader squarely amidst the deep swamps, ridges of mixed pines and hardwoods, and dense thickets of palmetto and greenbrier. Rutledge considered deer, “that noble, elusive, crafty, wonderful denizen of the wilds,” to be the wisest of the game animals. His firm belief was that there was “much more to hunting than hunting.” He praised whitetails in poetry, found in them a basis for a sophisticated philosophy, and, most of all, immortalized the world of the hunter and the hunted in prose. Tales of Whitetails is the only book ever published devoted exclusively to Rutledge’s deer tales.
An expanded edition of Rutledge's stories on game-bird hunting and devoted canine companions Archibald Rutledge has long been recognized as one of the finest sporting scribes this country has ever produced. A prolific writer who specialized in stories on nature and hunting, over the course of a long and prolific career Rutledge produced more than fifty books of poetry and prose, held the position of South Carolina's poet laureate for thirty-three years, and garnered numerous honorary degrees and prizes for his writings. In this revised and expanded edition of Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways, noted outdoor writer Jim Casada draws together Rutledge's stories on the southern heartland, deer hunting, turkey hunting, and Carolina Christmas hunts and traditions. This collection, first published in 1998, turns to Rutledge's writings on two subjects near and dear to his heart that he understood with an intimacy growing out of a lifetime of experience—upland bird hunting and hunting dogs. Its contents range from delightful tales of quail and grouse hunts to pieces on special dogs and some of their traits. Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways also includes a long fictional piece, "The Odyssey of Bolio," which shows that Rutledge's literary mastery extended beyond simple tales for outdoorsmen.
A twist-filled adventure story set in a treacherous land where most hunters dare not venture—enhanced with artwork and a literary scholar’s commentary. One of the more underappreciated aspects of Archibald Rutledge’s varied literary efforts is the way he could weave stories of danger in the wilds. What he frequently described as chimeras—great sharks, alligators, rattlesnakes, and cottonmouths of incredible and often embellished dimensions, wild hogs with razor-sharp tusks, and more—clearly fascinated him. Similarly, he exhibited a knack for twists and turns in his tales reminiscent of O. Henry at his best. “The Ocean’s Menace” offers a fine example. The title of the short story may conjure images of a massive white shark or a devilfish—but in fact “The Ocean” is a remote, treacherous tract of land where hunters dared not venture and which locals viewed with a mixture of awe and alarm. It provides an ideal setting for this tale—in which, Instead of a mighty stag or an antlered giant, the quarry proves to be the hunter’s salvation. Delightfully told, with an abundance of twists and turns as the story unfolds, this is the sage of the Santee—a John Burroughs Medal winner and South Carolina’s first poet laureate—at his finest. A project of South Carolina Humanities benefiting South Carolina literary programs, this new edition of “The Ocean’s Menace” is illustrated in handsome charcoal etchings by Southern artist Stephen Chesley. Award-winning outdoors writer and noted Rutledge scholar Jim Casada provides the volume’s introduction and afterword. “These books remind us of Mr. Rutledge’s command of the English language, his great skills of observation of the natural world, and his fondness for distilling universal truths from stories of local essence . . . It is good to have Mr. Rutledge with us once more.” —Pat Conroy
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