Tag Archives: Dialect

by | November 14, 2008 · 3:21 pm

J. G. Clinkscales. How Zach Came to College. Spartanburg, SC: W. F. Barnes, 1903.

Zach Whetsone, a lad from Rutherford County, happens to be selling his produce in Spartanburg, South Carolina one spring day when the commencement exercises at Wofford College are taking place. Zach is inspired by the event and later returns to Wofford as a student. As a poor mountaineer, Zach has to overcome many obstacles to complete his degree. When he finally does, he returns home to marry his true love, preach, teach, and start a high school. Zach is presented as an admirable figure: working hard, caring for his widowed mom, staying true to his love, and speaking out for national reconciliation, but his racial attitudes (or, those of the author) will offend many readers.

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, 1903, Clinkscales, J. G., Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Rutherford

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by | · 2:33 pm

Ethel and James Dorrance. Flames of the Blue Ridge. New York: Macaulay Co., 1919.

Calvin Parker is a New York artist who likes his drink–too much. A friend, Spencer Pope, tries to save Parker by sending him to dry out in the North Carolina mountains. It’s a little unbelievable that Pope, an internal revenue agent, didn’t know of the moonshine culture in Dismal Gap. Parker’s landlady is a stalwart dry campaigner and she is thrilled to have one of Mr. Pope’s associates boarding with her. So there’s the set-up: Parker wants a drink, but all the local moonshiners thinks he’s a revenuer. Parker’s romantic interest in Vernaluska Metcalf, a moonshiner’s daughter, adds a complication to the plot. Of course, it’s Parker’s love for the fair Verney that saves him–and her bootlegger dad.

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

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Filed under 1910-1919, 1919, Dorrance, Ethel and James, Mountains, Novels to Read Online

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by | November 9, 2008 · 4:20 pm

Payne Erskine. The Mountain Girl. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1912.

The healthful climate of the North Carolina mountains attracts the ailing English physician David Thryng. Dr. Thryng is a young man, from a good family. He becomes enchanted by the people, the beauty, and the folkways of the mountains (all well described in the book). He falls in love and marries a local girl. When his cousin and his brothers die in the Boer Wars, Dr. Thryng unexpectedly inherits an English title. As his English relatives know nothing of his marriage, the good doctor’s life becomes complicated. Since this is a book from an earlier, innocent era, readers can count on a happy ending.

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

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Filed under 1910-1919, 1912, Erskine, Payne, Mountains, Novels to Read Online

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by | October 23, 2008 · 2:28 pm

Payne Erskine. When the Gates Lift Up Their Heads: A Story of the Seventies. Boston: Little, Brown, 1901.

Although this novel is set in the mountains of western North Carolina, plantation slavery is presented is part of the local heritage and figures in the plot. The shoe is on the other foot when John Marshall returns to his hometown near Asheville in the 1870s. Northerners have come to this part of the South and they are making their presence felt through land purchases and business deals. His family home has been sold and is now a boarding house run by the optimistic and energetic Portia Van Ostade. Old racial and social attitudes are still alive, but the younger characters find romance across the sectional divide. The happiness of one young couple is threatened by a secret from the past.

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, 1901, Buncombe, Erskine, Payne, Mountains, Novels to Read Online

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by | October 9, 2008 · 3:58 pm

Roberta K. Dunlap. Mabel Gordon. New York: J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Co., 1901.

Mabel Gordon is a Southern girl whose family was ruined by the Civil War. A wealthy New Yorker takes Mabel under her wing. Mrs. Rowland pays for Mabel’s education, and Mabel serves the Rowland family as a secretary and nurse. Complications arise when Mrs. Rowland’s brother, Colonel Chester, woos Mabel. The colonel’s actions in the Civil War directly harmed the Gordon family, so Mabel’s heart is not easily thawed. The action moves back and forth between North Carolina and New York.

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, 1901, Dunlap, Roberta K., Novels to Read Online

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by | September 26, 2008 · 2:53 pm

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.

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by | September 15, 2008 · 4:52 pm

Waldron Baily. The Homeward Trail. New York: W. J. Watt & Co., 1916.

David Simmons and Ruth Swaim were childhood playmates, growing up on adjacent farms by the Yadkin River. Their parents assumed that the young people would some day wed, but when David bungles a sale of Mr. Swaim’s apples, he leaves the area. David’s plan is to earn the money to repay Mr. Swaim. Thus begin a picaresque tale in which David encounters an escaped Union prisoner and an Indian princess. David enjoys his time among the Croatan Indians (Lumbees) and comes to love the Princess Elizabeth. That in itself is a complicated situation, but the plot thickens when the Union soldier turns up where Ruth is staying and tells her about David’s new love. Ruth goes to David, and overhears David confess to Elizabeth his prior relationship with Ruth. Ruth and David recognize that their future is together, but leaving the Croatan settlement proves difficult.

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

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Filed under 1910-1919, 1916, Baily, Waldron, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont

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by | August 8, 2008 · 11:49 am

Vicki Lane. In a Dark Season. New York: Bantam Dell, 2008.

Elizabeth Goodweather has never liked the look of the old house called Gudger’s Stand. Dolls hanging from the porch, an angry old man, stories of runaway wives and violence–Elizabeth has ignored all that until one December day when she sees an elderly woman jump from the upstairs porch. It’s Miss Nola Barrett and Miz Barrett did not seem deranged or suicidal when Elizabeth met her a month before. Miz Barrett survives the jump, and as Elizabeth tries to help her she is drawn into the dark history of the house, a history that a murderer will do anything to hide.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Lane, Vicki, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | August 5, 2008 · 2:42 pm

Clarence Monroe Wallin. Gena of the Appalachians. New York: Cochrane Publishing, 1910.

Gena Filson’s life is hard after her parents die and her brothers move west. She becomes the hired girl in the household of Jase Dillenburger were she works from sunup to sundown. When old Jase is arrested for moonshining, Gena’s life improves. She gains land, goes to college, and marries a good, church-going man.

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

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Filed under 1910, 1910-1919, Children & Young Adults, Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Wallin, Clarence Monroe

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by | July 17, 2008 · 3:44 pm

Charles Egbert Craddock. The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1885.

The main character, John Kelsey, attempts to lead his mountaineer brethren away from sin. Most of the characters speak in a mountain dialect that will be of interest to some readers but difficult for others.

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

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Filed under 1880-1889, 1885, Craddock, Charles Egbert, Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Religious/Inspirational

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