Category Archives: 1900-1909

1900-1909

William Farquhar Payson. John Vytal: A Tale of the Lost Colony. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1901.

This alternative telling of the Lost Colony story adds some new figures, including 16th century bad-boy dramatist Christopher Marlowe and the main character, Captain John Vytal. Spanish invaders, hostile Native Americans, and internal dissent doom the colony. Marlowe returns to England and meets his fate at that tavern in Deptford. White Doe (Virginia Dare), Dark Eyes (Manteo’s son) and Eleanor Dare flee to the forest, along with Vytal who has long pined for Eleanor.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1901, Coast, Dare, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Payson, William Farquhar

Dorothy C. Paine. A Maid of the Mountains. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906.

When a wealthy family buys a summer home in the North Carolina mountains, their children get to know some of the locals. Wealthy Beth Davenport befriends Carol, a mountain girl with a talent for singing. Misunderstandings and misadventures put the girls, and Beth’s faithful dog in peril, but Beth’s plans to assist Carol bear fruit when a member of the Davenport’s social circle offers to take Carol north for an education.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1906, Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Paine, Dorothy C.

Will Loftin Hargrave. Wallannah: A Colonial Romance. Richmond: B. F. Johnson Publishing Co., 1902.

John Cantwell puts up a good front, but he is not the honest man the people of New Bern think he is. Despite his high social standing, his business dealings are shady and his personal life dishonorable. His schemes affect the lives of many people in the New Bern area in the decades leading up to the American Revolution.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library Catalog.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1902, Coast, Craven, Hargrave, Will Loftin, Novels to Read Online

Sidney C. Tapp. The Struggle. New York: A. Wessels Co., 1906.

It is a stretch to call this a North Carolina novel. Over a hundred pages are set in the boardrooms of Manhattan. The author’s goal is to reveal the way trusts, corporations, and large banks manipulate the commercial and political systems, to the detriment of the the average citizen. After the plans of the robber barons are put into place, the extended Shelton family is ruined. One of the few rays of hope for ordinary people is the Democratic Convention of North Carolina where the “representative of the people” achieves some victories. The heroic figure of the convention is the Hon. William Fitchen, who is thought to be modeled on Congressman and North Carolina Governor W.W. Kitchin.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1906, Novels to Read Online, Tapp, Sidney C.

Mary Virginia Wall. The Daughter of Virginia Dare. New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1908.

Virginia Dare is the lone survivor of the Lost Colony. Against her will, she becomes the consort of Powhatan and bears him a daughter, Pocahontas. After this interesting Tar Heel prelude, the novel relates the standard stories of Pocahontas, Jamestown, and John Smith.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1908, Coast, Dare, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Wall, Mary Virginia

John Jordan Douglass. The Girdle of the Great: A Story of the New South. New York: Broadway Publishing Co., 1908.

Although Colonel Watkins was at one time the wealthiest planter on the Pee Dee River, he now has little to pass on to his son Jerome. Jerome is determined to secure an education that will help him rise in the New South. With that education he can recover the family fortune and be able to ask for the hand of Maxine McDonald. Gabriel Allen stands in the way of Jerome’s goals. Things get worse for the Watkins family before they get better, but in the end Gabriel Allen shows his violent and treacherous nature, and Jerome and Maxine are married. Together they preside over the restoration and modernization of the plantation.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1908, Anson, Douglass, John Jordan, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont

S. O’H. Dickson. Reuben Delton, Preacher: A Sequel to “The Story of Marthy”. Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1900.

Marthy and Reuben Delton, married at the end of The Story of Marthy, have made a life together in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Marthy helps her pastor husband win souls and provide comfort to impoverished mountaineers. Marthy’s old friends, from the more affluent Blowing Rock, help the couple raise money to build a church.

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Filed under 1900, 1900-1909, Dickson, S. O'H., Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Religious/Inspirational

S.O’H. Dickson. Ralph Fabian’s Mistakes. New York: Broadway Publishing Co., 1908.

The Fabians are a happy middle class family, able to enjoy a vacation in the North Carolina mountains before sending their son Ralph off to college. When Ralph arrives at college, he finds that his meager allowance doesn’t cover his incidental expenses. He borrows money from his class treasury, and then things go down hill for Ralph until a mountain missionary helps him turn his life around. The opening chapters are a nice travelogue of the western piedmont and mountains. The college in the novel is thought to be Davidson.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1908, Davidson, Dickson, S. O'H., Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational

William Drysdale. Pine Ridge Plantation, or, The Trials and Successes of a Young Cotton Planter. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1901.

Colonel Andrews, a major North Carolina cotton planter, persuades Huntley Robertson, a hired hand on a farm in New York, to start out on his own near New Bern in 1900. With little money but lots of determination, Robertson becomes a successful planter.

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Comments Off on William Drysdale. Pine Ridge Plantation, or, The Trials and Successes of a Young Cotton Planter. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1901.

Filed under 1900-1909, 1901, Coastal Plain, Craven, Drysdale, William, Novels to Read Online