Let Me Lie: Being in the Main an Ethnological Account of the Remarkable Commonwealth of Virginia and the Making of Its History / Edition 1

by James Branch Cabell

Overview

When Let Me Lie was first published in 1947, most reviewers missed the double meaning of the book's title. Deaf to James Branch Cabell's many-layered ironic wit, they read the book as a paean to the old South.

Readers of this new paperback edition are unlikely to repeat the mistake. Let Me Lie is indeed a carefully researched and brilliantly written historical narrative of Virginia from 1559 to 1946—focusing on Tidewater, Richmond, and the Northern Neck—but as a fictional scholar remarks in the book, Cabell's history is "both accurate and injudicious." Virginia's story of itself, Cabell claims, depends on illusion and myth, and his skill as a satirist allows him to construct and deflate these myths simultaneously. Ranging from Don Luis de Velasco and Captain John Smith to Edgar Allan Poe and Ellen Glasgow, from Confederate heroes to the oddities of the post-Civil War Old Dominion, Let Me Lie remains compulsively readable, as history, entertainment, or both.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813920436
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	04/29/2001
Series:	The Virginia Bookshelf Series
Edition description:	1ST UNIVER
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) was the author of numerous works of fiction, history, criticism, and genealogy.

R. H. W. Dillard, Director of the Creative Writing Program at Hollins University, is the author most recently of Just Here, Just Now: Poems and Omniphobia: Stories.

Interviews

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Editorial Reviews

In a collection of satirical essays, James Branch Cabell presents a history of Virginia from 1559 to 1946. Topics include heroes of the Confederacy, Charles Dickens's reception in Richmond, and Southern ladies. This reprint of the 1947 edition includes a new introduction by R. H. W. Dillard (Hollins U.). The volume does not contain an index or bibliographical references. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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