The Forayers: or The Raid of the Dog Days

by William Gilmore Simms, David W. Newton (Editor)

Historical novelist William Gilmore Simms first published The Forayers in 1855 at the peak of his reputation and ability. Simms had set out to create a prose epic through a series of linked novels detailing American history and struggles from early colonization to the mid-nineteenth century. The Forayers , which was the sixth book in his series of eight Revolutionary War novels set in the South, describes events around Orangeburg, South Carolina, before the Battle of Eutaw Springs (itself covered in this novel’s sequel, Eutaw ). It features such characters as Hell-fire Dick, a hardhearted, foul-mouthed looter under Tory protection. Simms hoped his readers would find this book “a bold, brave, masculine story; frank, ardent, vigorous; faithful to humanity.” He described it to a friend as “fresh and original” and wrote that “the characterization [is] as truthful as forcible. It is at once a novel of society & a romance.”

Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

William Gilmore Simms (April 17, 1806 – June 11, 1870) was a poet, novelist and historian from the American South whose novels achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced. In recent decades, though, Simms' novels have fallen out of favor, although he is still known among literary scholars as a major force in antebellum Southern literature. He is also remembered for his strong support of slavery and for his opposition to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in response to which he wrote reviews and a novel.