Agrarian Arcadia; Anglo-Virginia Plants of Wilkes County, Georgia in the 1850s

Washington, GA: Mary Willis Library, 1996. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Hank Panowich. Format is approximately 8.75 inches by 11.25 inches. 297, [7]. Illustrations. Statistical Observations and Occupations. Endnotes and Bibliography. Errata slip present at end. Signed and dated by the author on fep. The author was educated at William and Mary College and Louisiana State University. He received his Ph.D. from Emory University in 1974. He taught from 1951 through 1990 when he retired. This book is an attempt to explain the character and roots of one part of society in one small part of pre-Civil War Georgia. It deals with real people who actually lived and attempts to draw sensible conclusions about their lifestyle. Writing with painstaking scholarship and genuine affection, Dr. Saggus details the lives and deaths, loves and losses, and economic histories of the major planters of Wilkes Country, Georgia in the 1850s. They enthusiastically embraced the revival of Greek architecture in their homes and public buildings. They knew themselves to be inheritors of a tradition that stretched far beyond their Virginia ancestors to the pastoral English countryside of earlier centuries. They were able (at least to their own satisfaction) to reconcile their roles as citizens of a new democracy with the practice of slave-owning.