Marion is proverbially the great master of strategy?the wily fox of the swamps?never to be caught, never to be followed, ?yet always at hand, with unconjectured promptness, at the moment when he is least feared and is least to be expected. South Carolina's ?Swamp Fox, ? Francis Marion, is one of the most celebrated figures of the American Revolution. Marion's cunning exploits in the Southern theater of the Revolution earned him national renown and a place in history as an American hero and master of modern guerilla warfare. Although dozens of works have been written about Marion's life over the years, this biography -- written by William Gilmore Simms, South Carolina's greatest author -- remains the best. First published in 1844, The Life of Francis Marion was Simms's most commercially successful work of nonfiction. It offers a treatment of Marion's life that is unparalleled in its scope and accuracy, all in Simms's inimitable style.

The idea of "the great American novel" continues to thrive almost as vigorously as in its nineteenth-century heyday, defying 150 years of attempts to dismiss it as amateurish or obsolete. In this landmark book, the first in many years to take in the whole sweep of national fiction, Lawrence""Buell""reanimates this supposedly antiquated idea, demonstrating that its history is a key to the dynamics of national literature and national identity itself.

The dream of the G.A.N., as Henry James nicknamed it, crystallized soon after the Civil War. In fresh, in-depth readings of selected contenders from the 1850s""onward in conversation with hundreds of other novels, Buell delineates four "scripts" for G.A.N. candidates. One, illustrated by "The Scarlet Letter," is the adaptation of the novel's story-line by later writers, often in ways that are contrary to the original author's own design. Other aspirants, including "The Great Gatsby" and "Invisible Man, " engage the American Dream of remarkable transformation from humble origins. A third script, seen in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Beloved," is the family saga that grapples with racial and other social divisions. Finally, mega-novels from "Moby-Dick" to "Gravity's Rainbow" feature assemblages of characters who dramatize in microcosm the promise and pitfalls of democracy.

The canvas of the great American novel is in constant motion, reflecting revolutions in fictional fashion, the changing face of authorship, and the inseparability of high culture from popular. As Buell reveals, the elusive G.A.N. showcases the myth of the United States as a nation perpetually under construction.

Long considered a leading literary figure of the Old South, William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) wrote letters, novels, short fiction, drama, essays, and poetry in his prolific career. Born in Charleston to an old South Carolina family of modest means and raised by a grandmother with whom his father left him after his mother's death, Simms felt a simultaneous sense of loyalty to and alienation from his native region. He was a major intellectual figure on the East Coast before the Civil War but saw his New York publishers abandon him after secession, of which he was a vocal supporter.

Simms's novels and poetry have been published in modern editions, and he has been the subject of numerous biographies and critical studies, but until now there has been no collection covering the broad spectrum of his writings. The Simms Reader presents a selection of his nonnovelistic work--letters, short fiction, essays, historical writings, poetry, and epigrams--chosen and introduced by the preeminent Simms scholar John Caldwell Guilds.