Other editions of book Lewis Rand

Lewis Rand (1908), the fifth novel by the Virginia-born writer Mary Johnston, has been singled out by some critics as her best work. A historical novel set in Virginia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it tells the story of Lewis Rand, the poor son of an Albemarle County tobacco-roller who, under the mentorship of Thomas Jefferson, escapes poverty, joins the bar, and is elected to the General Assembly before his ambition, and an impulsive murder, finally strikes him down. The backdrop for Johnston's tale is the fierce, sometimes violent rivalry between the populist Democratic-Republican Party and the more aristocratic Federalists, a rivalry echoed by the competition between Rand and the highborn Churchill and Cary families. Lewis Rand was enthusiastically received by critics, who admired Johnston's handling of her historical material. In the Smart Set, H. L. Mencken lauded its achievement, while the New York Times declared it "one of the strongest works of fiction that has seen the light of day in America." Critics reserved special praise for the character of Jacqueline Churchill, Randolph's wife, with one reviewer placing her goodness in the context of the more complex understandings of womanhood raised by a recent, nationally publicized murder trial. Subsequent critics have situated Lewis Rand among the author's best works, but by and large Johnston is ignored by twenty-first-century readers.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

The tobacco-roller and his son pitched their camp beneath a gum tree upon the edge of the wood. It was October, and the gum was the colour of blood. Behind it rolled the autumn forest; before it stretched a level of broom-sedge, bright ochre in the light of the setting sun. The road ran across this golden plain, and disappeared in a league-deep wood of pine. From an invisible clearing came a cawing of crows. The sky was cloudless, and the evening wind had not begun to blow. The small, shining leaves of the gum did not stir, and the flame of the camp-fire rose straight as a lance. The tobacco cask, transfixed by the trunk of a young oak and drawn by strong horses, had come to rest upon the turf by the roadside. Gideon Rand unharnessed the team, and from the platform built in the front of the cask took fodder for the horses, then tossed upon the grass a bag of meal, a piece of bacon, and a frying-pan. The boy collected the dry wood with which the earth was strewn, then struck flint and steel, guarded the spark within the tinder, fanned the flame, and with a sigh of satisfaction stood back from the leaping fire. His father tossed him a bucket, and with it swinging from his hand, he made through the wood towards a music of water. Goldenrod and farewell-summer and the red plumes of the sumach lined his path, while far overhead the hickories and maples reared a fretted, red-gold roof. Underfoot were moss and coloured leaves, and to the right and left the squirrels watched him with bright eyes. He found the stream where it rippled between banks of fern and mint. As he knelt to fill the pail, the red haw and the purple ironweed met above his head.

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