Author: Simms, William Gilmore
Biography:
SIMMS, William Gilmore (1806-70: WBIS)
A major writer of the American South, but known primarily as a novelist, he was born in Charleston SC, the son of Anna Augusta (Singleton) and William Gilmore Simms. His father, who was a merchant, was so distraught at the death of his wife two years later that he left the boy with his maternal grandmother and went to settle on a plantation in Mississippi. As a boy Simms became a keen reader and writer, though with little formal schooling. He was apprenticed to an apothecary at twelve; studied law, and practised for a time as an attorney; but he found his calling in literary journalism, both as author and editor. Before his first marriage in 1826 he made two long trips to visit his father and explore the frontier--experiences that he put to use in his fiction. His wife Anna Matilda Giles died in 1832, leaving him a daughter. In 1836 he married again; with Chevillette Eliza Roach, the daughter of a wealthy South Carolina planter, he took over one of the family plantations, Woodlands, and had fourteen children, five of whom survived childhood. Simms was, on the model of Walter Scott (q.v.), a prodigiously prolific writer and for many years a successful one. He began producing long-form fiction in 1833, cultivating fruitful connections with publishers in the North. His subjects were typically romances of either the antebellum South or the western frontier. He also contributed to the literary culture of South Carolina as an editor, historian, and biographer. During the Civil War he supported the Confederate side and the system of slavery; after the War his idealised treatment of the South fell out of fashion. He was also beset by troubles at home: not only several children but also his wife died (in 1863), and their home was twice damaged by fire during the War. Though he tried to write his way out of difficulty by signing contracts for three books at once in 1868, only two of the books were completed and overwork probably hastened his own death, in Charleston, in 1870. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston. (ANBO 22 Sept. 2020; ancestry.com 22 Sept. 2020; Hart) HJ
Other Names:
- W. Gilmore Simms
- W. Gilmore Simms, Jr.
- William G. Simms
- William G. Simms, Jr.