The Regional Readers book group will meet Tuesday, March 30 in the JSF Conference Room. Coffee and conversation at 2:00 p.m.; book discussion at 2:30 p.m. The book group is open to all and new members are always welcome. We encourage suggestions for the 2021 reading list.
The March selection is Daughter of the Legend by Jesse Stuart. When Jesse Stuart was a student at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, “he met and fell in love with a beautiful Melungeon girl named Barnie Greene.” So when Stuart drafted Daughter of the Legend in 1945, he was reliving the excitement and cultural conflict of his undergraduate days. The novel was first published in 1965 and limited to one printing.
Rather than writing an epilogue to the story of a mysterious and forgotten people, Stuart’s novel created an interest in the Melungeons that has grown dramatically in the last three decades, thanks in large part to the pioneering research efforts of Brent Kennedy, author of The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People.
Today, the origin of the Melungeons is a source of ongoing intellectual controversy between historians and genealogists. Daughter of the Legend was re-issued by the JSF in 1994 and again in 2020. Editor John H. Spurlock’s Preface, noted author Wilma Dykeman’s Introduction, Brent Kennedy’s Afterword, and powerful illustrations by Jim Marsh combine to make this reprint of Daughter of the Legend a welcome response to a growing interest in the Melungeons.
The Regional Readers book group will meet Tuesday, March 30 in the JSF Conference Room. Coffee and conversation at 2:00 p.m.; book discussion at 2:30 p.m. The book group is open to all and new members are always welcome. We encourage suggestions for the 2021 reading list.
The March selection is Daughter of the Legend by Jesse Stuart. When Jesse Stuart was a student at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, “he met and fell in love with a beautiful Melungeon girl named Barnie Greene.” So when Stuart drafted Daughter of the Legend in 1945, he was reliving the excitement and cultural conflict of his undergraduate days. The novel was first published in 1965 and limited to one printing.
Rather than writing an epilogue to the story of a mysterious and forgotten people, Stuart’s novel created an interest in the Melungeons that has grown dramatically in the last three decades, thanks in large part to the pioneering research efforts of Brent Kennedy, author of The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People.
Today, the origin of the Melungeons is a source of ongoing intellectual controversy between historians and genealogists. Daughter of the Legend was re-issued by the JSF in 1994 and again in 2020. Editor John H. Spurlock’s Preface, noted author Wilma Dykeman’s Introduction, Brent Kennedy’s Afterword, and powerful illustrations by Jim Marsh combine to make this reprint of Daughter of the Legend a welcome response to a growing interest in the Melungeons.
