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Virginia is the first American book which is written in English



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1. Virginia is the first American book which is written in English
Virginia is a novel by Ellen Glasgow about a wife and mother who in vain seeks happiness by serving her family. This novel, her eleventh, marked a clear departure from Glasgow's previous work—she had written a series of bestsellers before publishing Virginia—in that it attacked, in a subtle yet unmistakable way, the very layer of society that constituted her readership. Also, as its heroine, though virtuous and god-fearing, is denied the happiness she is craving, its plot did not live up to readers' expectations as far as poetic justice is concerned and was bound to upset some of them. Today, Virginia is seen by many as an outstanding achievement in Glasgow's career, exactly because the author defied literary convention by questioning the foundations of American society around the dawn of the 20th century, be it capitalism, religion or racism.
Born in 1864 to a clergyman and his dutiful wife, Virginia grows up as a Southern belle in the town of Dinwiddie, Virginia. Her education is strictly limited to the bare minimum, with anything that might disturb her quiet and comfortable existence vigorously avoided. Thus prepared for life, Virginia falls for the first handsome young man who crosses her path—Oliver Treadwell, the black sheep of a family of capitalist entrepreneurs who, during the time of Reconstruction, brought industry and the railroad to the South. Oliver, who has been abroad and has only recently arrived in Dinwiddie, is a dreamer and an intellectual. An aspiring playwright, his literary ambitions are more important to him than money, and he refuses his uncle's offer to work in his bank. However, when Virginia falls in love with him he realizes that he must be able to support a family, and eventually accepts his uncle's offer to work for the railroad.2
The young couple get married and have three children, a boy and two girls. Gradually perfecting her household skills, Virginia is able to get by on very little money. When, after many years, Oliver's first play is put on the stage in New York City, his expectations are high. However, the show is a complete failure as the play is far too intellectual and radical for a Broadway audience who wants to be entertained rather than reformed. Reading about the flop in the local newspaper, Virginia for the first time in her life leaves her children, asking her mother to take care of them for a day or two, and takes the night train to New York to be with, and console, her husband—only to be rejected by him, who is in a state of severe depression. When he has recovered from the shock, Oliver makes yet another concession to society and public taste and starts writing "trash".3
Throughout the years, Virginia leads a vicarious life: She is happy when her husband and children are happy; she makes sure their clothes are in perfect condition while neglecting her own outward appearance; and she is eager to provide for her children the education she herself has been denied. When, at one point, she realizes that the women her age whom she has known since childhood still look quite young while she has aged prematurely, she quickly persuades herself to believe that a life of altruistic subservience is more than worthwhile, that living and acting the way she does is her duty and God's will. Her father's sudden if honourable death—he unsuccessfully tries to prevent the lynching of an innocent young African American and is stabbed in the process by an angry and drunken young man—adds to the gloom that starts creeping into her life, especially when she sees that, as a widow, her mother suddenly loses all her will to live. When she dies only a few months after her husband, Virginia has a premonition that her own fate when losing Oliver could be a similar one.4
Meanwhile, Oliver's first successful play—a trashy one—premières in New York, with some more to follow in quick succession, and, as the money keeps pouring in, the family move into a bigger house in Dinwiddie. They now employ a number of servants, including an African American butler. With the children gone—their son and one daughter are at college, while the other daughter has married a much older widower with two grown-up children and has also flown the nest—and Oliver frequently in New York to supervise the staging of his plays, Virginia's life becomes increasingly empty. Having "outlived her usefulness", the days seem endless to her, and with all the servants about the house there is absolutely no housework for her to do either. Now in her mid-forties, Virginia for the first time in her life spends Christmas alone at home.
The biggest blow, however, is yet to come: When she accompanies Oliver to New York for a première, she finds out to her dismay that he has been betraying her with a famous actress who stars in one of his plays. For the last time summoning up all her courage, she takes a taxi and pays her an unexpected call but immediately realizes when talking to her that she has no chance of winning her husband back. Without many words, Oliver asks her to let him divorce her, but clinging to the only thing she has left in her life—her marriage—she refuses. The novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note when Virginia, again alone in the empty house in Dinwiddie, receives a letter from her son telling her that he is going to leave Oxford before he has completed his two-year course at the university in order to come back and stay with his mother. Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech before the second Virginia Convention at St. John’s Church (formerly Henrico Parish) in Richmond on March 23, 1775.
On October 19, 1781, following three weeks of continuous bombardment, British General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington in the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, essentially bringing the American Revolution to an end.5
Virginia’s borders have expanded and contracted numerous times since its inception as the first of the 13 original colonies. In 1792, nine counties known as the Kentucky District of Virginia entered the union as the state of Kentucky, and in 1863, western counties of Virginia were approved to enter the union as the state of West Virginia.
The Arlington National Cemetery, one of America’s most renowned military cemeteries, was originally built in the early 19th century as a mansion by George Washington’s adopted grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. Robert E. Lee, who married Custis’ daughter, Mary Anna, lived in Arlington House at various periods until 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union and the couple vacated the estate. On June 15, 1864, the property was established as a military cemetery. of England signed a charter for its creation on February 8, 1693. At the persuasion of Thomas Jefferson, the first law school in America was established there in 1779.6
Notes on the State of Virginia, by Thomas Jefferson, is at once a compendium of information about the state and a sweeping commentary on natural history, society, politics, education, religion, slavery, liberty, and law. Many consider it the most important American book written before 1800. Jefferson originally composed the work in 1781 in answer to queries posed by a French diplomat, and then revised and expanded it into a description and defense of the young United States as interpreted through a Virginia lens. The book is divided into twenty-three chapters, largely taken from the diplomat’s queries, though Jefferson reordered and renumbered them. Notes was first published in Paris in 1785 in an edition of 200. Both a French translation, published in 1786, and the widely circulated London edition of 1787 incorporated important structural changes and a detailed map. Notes on the State of Virginia wrested the interpretation of the young American nation from European critics and intellectuals and offered an eloquent indigenous voice. It profoundly influenced European understanding of the United States, as well as American views of Virginia. It established Jefferson’s international reputation as a serious scientist, a man of letters, and the principal spokesman for his “country,” whether Virginia or the United States; his discursive text, ranging over the entire continent, implicitly blurred the distinction between the two. As the most detailed and influential portrait of any state or region of the United States for generations, Notes ensured that Virginia would be a primary focus of future studies of the American republic. The book contains Jefferson’s most powerful indictments of slavery; it is also a foundational text of racism.7
On January 21st, 1789, the novel The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown was published in Boston. The book is widely accepted as the first American novel to be written and published. Before this, it is likely that American publishers were simply publishing European manuscripts. William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature was published 226 years ago today, in 1789. It’s generally considered the first American novel, though you won’t find it on many (any?) short lists for the Great American Novel. To speak with the kind of prudence it so sternly advocates: the passing centuries have hidden its charms.8
An epistolary novel in the style of Samuel Richardson’s PamelaThe Power of Sympathy tells the story of Thomas Harrington, a New Englander who has fallen, against his father’s wishes, for a woman named Harriot. He dearly yearns for Harriot as his mistress: “Shall we not,” he asks her, “obey the dictates of nature, rather than confine ourselves to the forced, unnatural rules of—and—and shall the halcyon days of youth slip through our fingers unenjoyed?” (Actually, Harrington says all of this with “the language of the eyes.” Early Americans excelled, you see, at conducting complicated conversations using only their peepers.)
Thomas’s friend Worthy urges him to marry the girl, rather than simply miring himself in licentiousness, and so the pair fall deeply in love; they’re soon engaged. But Thomas’s father does not receive the news well, and for good reason: Harriot is his illegitimate daughter, and now the secret must come out to protect his son’s honor. “He is now even upon the point of marrying—shall I proceed!—of marrying his Sister!” the father writes. “I fly to prevent incest!”

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