About
Welcome to one of the largest single author collections on the web, the William Gilmore Simms Digital Edition. Writing from Charleston and Barnwell District, South Carolina, as well as on trips across the South and to the North, he did more than anyone to frame white southern self-identity, nationalism, and historical consciousness. He also did more to foster the South’s literary life and place in America’s imagination. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, only James Fenimore Cooper was as popular, and Edgar Allan Poe in 1845 rated Simms “the best novelist which this country has, on the whole, produced.” He was as well the South’s most influential editor of cultural journals and was the region’s most prolific critic and poet. Enjoy your exploration of his work and world, returning to examine new materials added since your last visit. For more detailed information about Simms’s publications and their histories be sure to visit our parent site at the Simms Initiatives.