 the city’s most select group, the St. Cecilia Society.
Simms has been criticized for writing too much, too carelessly, and with too frequent use of stock devices; he was at his best the master of a racy and masculine English prose style and in dealing humorously with rowdy frontier characters. His gift as a teller of tales in the oral tradition and the antiquarian care he took in preparing historical materials are dominant features of such works as Pelayo (1838), in an 8th-century setting; Vasconselos (1853), 16th century; The Yemassee (1835; his most successful work in audience appeal), colonial; the revolutionary series—The Partisan (1835), Mellichampe (1836), The Kinsmen (1841), Katherine Walton (1851), Woodcraft (1854), The Forayers (1855), Eutaw (1856), Joscelyn (1867); his best border romances—Richard Hurdis (1838) and Border Beagles (1840); his short-story collection The Wigwam and the Cabin (1845); and his History of South Carolina (1840). Of 19 volumes of poetry, the collected Poems (1853) deserve mention. Most popular of his biographies were The Life of Francis Marion (1844) and The Life of Chevalier Bayard (1847). His literary criticism is represented in Views and Reviews of American Literature (1845).
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American literature: Early 19th-century literature>William Gilmore Simms. In
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