Albion W Tourgee: 4 books

This facsimile edition of Albion W. Tourgées regimental history of the 105th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was first published in 1896. Tourgée, a lawyer and outspoken abolitionist from Williamsfield, Ohio, is best known for his semi-fictional novels about the reconstruction of the South following the Civil...

This 1879 novel, based on the author's own experiences, made a significant contribution to American literature in its unvarnished presentation of the South during Reconstruction.  When Comfort Servosse, an ex-Union soldier, moves his family south to aid in Reconstruction efforts, he finds an unrepentant racism that will imperil his dreams and threaten his very life.   

This 1880 sequel to A Fool's Errand was equally successful.  Drawing on his experiences in the Reconstruction-era South, Tourgée recounts how the high ideals of Reconstruction were sabotaged by the Ku Klux Klan and the culture of white supremacy that thrived in the defeated Confederacy—often with the concurrence of the victorious North. 

Published in 1881, this novel is a retitled expansion of Tourgée's first novel 'Toinette, which appeared in 1874.  In the author's words, from the preface, the novel "traces . . . those unconscious influences which shape and mold mental and moral qualities, and through which Slavery still lives and dominates."