The City of the Silent is a poem of 500 lines written by William Gilmore Simms in November 1850.  It was published by Walker & James in Charleston, SC that same year.  The cover lists a specific date, November 19, which was the date that Simms delivered the poem at the consecration of the new Magnolia Cemetery on the banks of the Cooper River, just north of Charleston.  Although it was being published in December of 1850, and despite the fact the cover notes the date of publication as 1850, the work was released as a pamphlet in February of 1851.[1]             ...

                Marie de Berniere: A Tale of the Crescent City is a collection of stories published in 1853 by Lippincott, Grambo, and Co. of Philadelphia.  In addition to the title story, the collection includes “The Maroon” and “Maize in Milk.”  Each story was published serially prior to the collection and gradually expanded from its serial version into novella form.  In a 20 June 1853 to James Henry Hammond, Simms mentioned “collecting my scattered novellettes & tales.  You have probably seen ‘Marie de Berniere &c.’ This will be followed up by other vols. of similar ...

                Throughout his long career, Simms was regularly concerned with theatre, though drama would always be the genre with which he had the least commercial and critical success.  Norman Maurice; or,The Man of the the People is perhaps Simms’s best dramatic work, though its failings are typical of his theatrical frustrations.  Norman Maurice was a lofty experiment, mixing contemporary politics with common language presented in the format of the Elizabethan tragedy.  Written in strict blank verse, Norman Maurice is a play in which the Constitutional and slavery questions that ...