In this exhaustive biography, Keith Krawczynski details the political and social career of William Henry Drayton (1742--1779), an ambitious, wealthy lowcountry planter and zealous patriot leader who was at the center of Revolutionary activity in South Carolina from 1774 until his death five years later. Considered the most effective Whig polemicist in the lower South, Drayton served on all his state's important Revolutionary governing bodies, commanded a frigate of war, was elected chief justice in 1776, coauthored South Carolina's 1778 constitution, and represented the state in the...

The legal crusade of Myra Clark Gaines (1804?--1885) has all the trappings of classic melodrama -- a lost heir, a missing will, an illicit relationship, a questionable marriage, a bigamous husband, and a murder. For a half century the daughter of New Orleans millionaire Daniel Clark struggled to justify her claim to his enormous fortune in a case that captivated the nineteenth-century public. Elizabeth Urban Alexander taps voluminous court records and letters to unravel the twists and turns of Gaines's litigation and reveal the truth behind the mysterious saga of this notorious...

The seven novels of North Carolina writer Bernice Kelly Harris (1894--1973) were published to international acclaim in the 1940s, and her plays were produced on television in the 1950s. Yet, despite her success at midlife, she spent her last years struggling to make ends meet and was virtually unknown by the time of her death. In this compelling biography -- the first full-scale life of Harris since 1955 and the first to utilize unpublished autobiographical writings and confidential letters -- Valerie Raleigh Yow brings Harris back into the spotlight, revealing an extraordinary woman who...