The Dividing Line Histories of William Byrd II of Westover (Book)
Title: The Dividing Line Histories of William Byrd II of Westover
Author: William Byrd II
Editor: Kevin Joel Berland
Abstract: After his 1728 Virginia-North Carolina boundary expedition, Virginia planter and politician William Byrd II composed two very different accounts of his adventures. The Secret History of the Line was written for private circulation, offering tales of scandalous behavior and political misconduct, peppered with rakish humor and personal satire. The History of the Dividing Line, continually revised by Byrd for decades after the expedition, was intended for the London literary market, though not published in his lifetime. Collating all extant manuscripts, my scholarly edition of these two histories provides wide-ranging historical and cultural contexts for both, helping to recreate the social and intellectual ethos of Byrd and his time. Byrd enriched his narratives with material appropriated from earlier authors, many of whose works were in his library--the most extensive in the American colonies. Berland identifies for the first time many of Byrd's sources and raises the question: how reliable are histories that build silently upon antecedent texts and present borrowed material as firsthand testimony? In my analysis I demonstrate the need for a new category to assess early modern history writing: the hybrid, accretional narrative.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=3265
Primary URL Description: UNC Press website
Secondary URL: http://www.personal.psu.edu/bcj/Reviews/
Secondary URL Description: Listing of reviews
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 978-1-4696-069
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Some of Byrd's Words... (Blog Post)
Title: Some of Byrd's Words...
Author: Kevin Joel Berland
Abstract: In his Dividing Line histories, William Byrd introduced several words not represented in the Oxford English Dictionary. In this blog posting I discuss a number of examples
Date: 10/2/2013
Primary URL: http://netwallah.blogspot.com/2013/10/some-of-byrds-words.html
Primary URL Description: My occasional blog on scholarly issues.
Secondary URL: http://uncpressblog.com/2013/12/19/kevin-joel-berland-william-byrd-ii-archiving-colonial-virginias-natural-history/
Secondary URL Description: UNC Press's blog, discussing the edition and linking to my blog post
Blog Title: Netwallah Redivivus
Website: http://netwallah.blogspot.com/

"Byrd's Lightning." (Blog Post)
Title: "Byrd's Lightning."
Author: Kevin Joel Berland
Abstract: A discussion of meteorology in WIlliam Byrd's Dividing Line Histories
Date: 11/30/2013
Primary URL: http://netwallah.blogspot.com/2013/11/byrds-lightning.html
Primary URL Description: My occasional blog on scholarly matters
Secondary URL: http://uncpressblog.com/2013/12/19/kevin-joel-berland-william-byrd-ii-archiving-colonial-virginias-natural-history/
Secondary URL Description: "Kevin Joel Berland: William Byrd II, Archiving Colonial Virginia’s Natural History" -- an introduction and link to my blog.
Blog Title: UNC Press Blogs
Website: http://netwallah.blogspot.com/

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