George Washington's Last Duel

by Thomas Nelson Page

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Literary;

Genres: Fiction

28 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1891

About the author

Born at Oakland, one of the Nelson family plantations, in the village of Beaverdam in Hanover County, Virginia to John Page and Elizabeth Burwell Nelson. He was a scion of the prominent Nelson and Page families, each First Families of Virginia. Although he was from once-wealthy lineage, after the American Civil War, which began when he was only 8 years old, his parents and their relatives were largely impoverished during Reconstruction and his teenage years. In 1869, He entered Washington College, known now as Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia when Robert E. Lee was president of the college. After three years, Page left Washington College before graduation for financial reasons. To earn money for the law degree he desired, Page taught the children of his cousins in Kentucky. From 1873 to 1874, he was enrolled in the law school of the University of Virginia in pursuit of a legal career. At Washington College and thereafter at UVA, Nelson was a member of the prestigious fraternity Delta Psi, AKA St. Anthony Hall.

Admitted to the Virginia Bar Association, he practiced as a lawyer in Richmond between 1876 and 1893, and began writing. He was married to Anne Seddon Bruce on July 28, 1886. She died on December 21, 1888 of a throat hemorrhage.

He remarried on June 6, 1893, to Florence Lathrop Field, a widowed sister-in-law of retailer Marshall Field. In the same year Page gave up his law practice entirely and moved with his wife to Washington, D.C..There, he kept up his writing, which amounted to eighteen volumes when they were compiled and published in 1912. Page popularized the plantation tradition genre of Southern writing, which told of an idealized version of life before the Civil War, with contented slaves working for beloved masters and their families. His 1887 collection of short stories, In Ole Virginia, is the quintessential work of that genre. Another short-story collection of his is entitled The Burial of the Guns (1894).

Under President Woodrow Wilson, Page served as U.S. ambassador to Italy for six years between 1913 and 1919. His book entitled Italy and the World War (1920) is a memoir of his service there.

He died in 1922 at Oakland in Hanover County, Virginia.

Reviews

[Charles van Buren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief slice of plantation life before the war

Review of free Kindle edition
A Public Domain Book
Publication date: May 12, 2012
Language: English
ASIN: B0082YWKTA
25 pages

A tale of plantation life, romance, misunderstood lovers, a visiting Yankee lady and of course the Code Duello aka the Southern Code of Honor. George Washington is the major's slave, butler, chief factotum and major domo. He has also fallen into bad habits such as drinking the major's whiskey and stealing his clothes. He gets his comeuppance in the end. Adding to the humor, both the major and George Washington, pull the Yankee lady's leg with outlandish stories of the plantation and life in the South.

The scene is sometime before the war. Internal clues point to a time between 1858 and 1861. A well written story but I don't regard it as Thomas Nelson Page in top form. Three and a half stars.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story book, Also part of the Gutenberg project was released on Oct 12th 2007 [e-book #23013]

The book is free to obtain at www.gutenberg.org

This book is a short 37 pages long on the nook. It has really well described account of what happened with George Washington's Last Duel. I can not really say too much with out giving the story away.

The author does a great job of telling the story,not many mistake at all through out the book.

This book is short enough that no one could really turn this book away, unless you find history to be unappealing. If however you are a person that can not wait to discover secrets of the past then this book will not disappoint...reading this book will let you in on how close America was to not having George Washington around.

4.5 Only because I feel that this book is trying to tease you with as little information as possible as if to bait you to want more, and I finished the book wanting exactly that more...

Good book.

[Miles Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story by Page is a good example of Lost Cause literature in the South. The story tells the tale of a clever slave's machinations to rise above his station and emulate white freedoms. Visiting northerners misconstrue and unknowingly misrepresent the planter's customs. In the end, the master of the plantation magnanimously outwits his slave and puts him back in his rightful (inferior) place. And the northern marm is proved to have seen evil in a system that Page clearly believes was good. The entire story reinforces black inferiority and the perceived rightness of racial caste in the slaveholding South.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and engaging short story that touches upon plantation life, the servants, and plantation owners. The story interested me from start to finish. The writing style is smooth, and the plot is delightful.

💥Recommended.
🟣

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short story with a rather condensed plot... Available online here: http://manybooks.net/titles/pagethom2...