Post by Jim Boylston on Jul 28, 2007 10:53:17 GMT -5
Allen and I haven't been posting a lot lately because, like Mark, we've been hunkered down on our book project, "The Collected Correspondence of David Crockett". I figured an update on our progress might be of interest.
We've had good luck obtaining copies of the known letters, with only a couple of exceptions, and we're confidant that we'll soon have most extant correspondence. We've also found a number of letters that have not been previously published.
We'll be publishing the text of all these letters in their entirety, with annotations.
We've also collected a number of Crockett's speeches and circulars, which provide insight into the real man as opposed to the legend, which we hope to include in the book as well.
Our most daunting task has turned out to be finding the 19th century newspapers that include exchanges between Crockett and his critics. Complete runs of the "Jackson Gazette" and "Southern Statesman" are hard to come by, but we're confidant that we'll find what we need and include these items as well. If anyone knows of an on line source for these items, please drop us a line, you may save one of us an expensive flight!
We hope the publication of this book will contribute to our having a more complete picture of Crockett, and that readers will have a better understanding of his actions and motivations. I know both of us have learned a lot in the course of doing this research, and my perspective of Crockett has certainly changed.
Jim
We've had good luck obtaining copies of the known letters, with only a couple of exceptions, and we're confidant that we'll soon have most extant correspondence. We've also found a number of letters that have not been previously published.
We'll be publishing the text of all these letters in their entirety, with annotations.
We've also collected a number of Crockett's speeches and circulars, which provide insight into the real man as opposed to the legend, which we hope to include in the book as well.
Our most daunting task has turned out to be finding the 19th century newspapers that include exchanges between Crockett and his critics. Complete runs of the "Jackson Gazette" and "Southern Statesman" are hard to come by, but we're confidant that we'll find what we need and include these items as well. If anyone knows of an on line source for these items, please drop us a line, you may save one of us an expensive flight!
We hope the publication of this book will contribute to our having a more complete picture of Crockett, and that readers will have a better understanding of his actions and motivations. I know both of us have learned a lot in the course of doing this research, and my perspective of Crockett has certainly changed.
Jim
