In the closing years of his life, William Gilmore Simms found himself physically unwell, near-indigent, and living in a post-Civil War world that challenged his entire conception of social order.  Yet, out of this, Simms produced one last great flourish of creativity, including The Cub of the Panther:  A Hunter Legend of the “Old North State.”  This novel shares certain features with the author’s earlier border romances, exhibiting a similar interest in violence, comedy, and social stratification.  Yet, the different socio-political circumstances of the postbellum world ...

           Judging by a letter he wrote to his friend Evert Augustus Duyckinck in December 1868, William Gilmore Simms considered Voltmeier, his forthcoming Mountain Romance, to be, “in some respects, one of the most remarkable books I have ever written,” and “among the most excellent of my prose writings.”[1]  Part of the Border Romance series, the novel was inspired by the story of the infamous Allen Twitty, “a highly respected member of a prominent family noted for public service,” whose indictment and sensational trials for counterfeiting between 1805 and 1815 became a cause célèbre ...