LIGHTWOOD

by Brainard Cheyney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 24, 1939

A new background and a new facet of early American history makes this story more important than the actual quality of the story itself. Georgia and the period following the carpetbaggers, the coming of the railroad and all the manipulating of land values, of titles, and rights which caused virtually another Civil War within the state boundaries -- such is the basic theme of Lightwood. The Corns had three generations' right to their land; otner families had one generation and ""coffee pot leases""; but he ""dam' Yankees"" looked only for the way to do them out of their land so that timber could be cut and railroad ties laid. Racketeering, old style -- a story as revealing and as unsavoury as the story of the opening up of the northwest, Honey in the Horn, Not easy reading -- the colloquialisms and the dialect are hard going for the reader not accustomed to the South, and the plot is spun thin for the sake of the subject matter. But it fills in another panel in the growth of a new country.

Pub Date: Oct. 24, 1939

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1939

Categories: FICTION