GONE WITH THE WIND

An item from a "this-date-in-history" column caught our eye this week. On May 3, 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gone With the Wind. And now, 75 years later, her work still stands as one of the great pieces of American literature of all times.  There is a copy of this book in the Bullis Collection. And the collection also contains a significant number of non-fiction books on the War Between the States that Margaret Mitchell skillfully fictionalized.

So ... if you are interested in learning more about the Civil War, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room and look at some of these books.  And we also invite you to read (or reread) two of our 2011 posts in which we recorded John Lapham Bullis's eyewitness accounts as a young recruit, taken from his letters home to his family.  (See our April 8, 2011 and April 15, 2011 posts.)

We hope you find one or more of these sources of Civil War history interesting and informative.

MARGARET MITCHELL, MARK TWAIN...

...are but two of an impressive list of famous authors who have had their books banned at some time, in various parts of the world and for various reasons.

Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) and Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain) as well as Anna Sewell's Black Beauty,  Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and Shakespear's The Merchant of Venice have at one time been forbidden reading. We can also add to the list the Holy Bible and the Quran.  Copies of all these books are a part of this collection.

We invite you to stop by the display case outside the Bullis Room to see some of the Bullis books that were banned.    Perhaps you'll go away with an enhanced appreciation of these books. (We did.)

ROMANCE AND HISTORY

These last few weeks in the Bullis room, we've worked with books in two genres--romance and history.  There's one book in this collection that ties these subjects together...Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell.

The Bullis copy is currently in the display case outside the room.  One glance will tell you it's not a quick read. With 1,037 pages, it may be a book to put on your winter reading list.

If you do read (or reread) Gone With the Wind, we suggest you think about men like John Lapham Bullis who enlisted in the 126th New York Volunteer Infantry at 21 years of age and was quickly plunged into the middle of that heartbreaking war. He was injured and captured in the Battle of Harper's Ferry in September, 1862, barely a month after he enlisted. And although he rejoined his regiment after exchange, he was again wounded and captured at the battle of Gettysburg, and spent the following ten months confined to Libby Prison in Virginia.

John Lapham Bullis's wartime experiences can add perspective to both fiction and nonfiction accounts of the Civil War by giving us a personal connection. And perhaps when we better understand our history, we can in turn have a greater understanding of current events and situations.  We can always hope so.

LIFE IN DIXIE

Last week we posted a list of Bullis books that cover the Civil War. This week we took a closer look at one of them...Life In Dixie During the War, 1861-1862-1873-1864-1865 by Mary A. H. Gay, published in 1894.  This book is now at the top of our blogger's non-fiction reading list.

According to one source, Mary Gay lived most of her life in Decatur, Georgia. She wrote a number of books, but Life in Dixie is the most famous and one that deserves to be read (or re-read) during this 150-year anniversary of the Civil War.  The eyewitness accounts from a woman's point of view are unique as well as fascinating.

According to several sources (including Google eBook), Life in Dixie "...gave Martha Mitchell the idea for Gone with the Wind." Continuing to quote Google eBook, the book has "...terrific insights into the life and perspective of southern whites during the war, the character and deeds of union soldiers."

For this reason (and many others) we strongly recommend this book for your summer or wintertime reading. Either online...or here in the Bullis Room.