In partnership with the University of South Carolina Press, the Simms Initiatives at the University of South Carolina Libraries reissue authoritative editions of out of print works by William Gilmore Simms, antebellum South Carolina's preeminent man of letters. Full content from these volumes will also be available online via www.sc.edu/library. As part of the inaugural effort, the six volumes of The Letters of William Gilmore Simms-first published by USC Press between 1952 and 1982-are also being reissued in their first paperback editions. Each volume also includes a new scholarly introduction.
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.