| The text above is from Lyddy, and the handwriting identifying the
"real" location of the ante bellum plantation on which most of this novel is set
belongs to its author, Eugenia Bacon, whose birth is narrated in Chapter 2. As
Bacon says in her Preface, she wrote the book as a counter-narrative to the "Tom
Shows" of the late 19th century, the dramatizations of Stowe's novel that
provided millions of people with their most vivid idea of slavery. "Lyddy" was
the author's "mammy," whose trials with love and unfailing devotion to her
"w'ite chilluns" are the main elements in the book's slight narrative. The copy in Virginia's Alderman Library was presented to Professor Kent by Bacon in 1907. In addition to her marginal identifications of places and people (Siberty County, for example, is Liberty, and Revilo is her husband Oliver), this copy contains four pages tipped into the front, including a sampling of reviews from mainly northern newspapers that indicate the book was well-received when it first appeared in 1898. An inserted title page crosses out "Continental Publishing Co.," redates the book 1909, and includes a handwritten notice by Bacon that "autographed copies" can be acquired at her Richmond home. |
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Lyddy: A Tale of the Old South By Eugenia J. Bacon (New York: Continental Publishing Co., 1898) |
Laura, "Chim" |
 Cover |
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