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[ 18 ] HENRY JUNIUS NOTT AND THE ROOTS OF SOUTHERN FRONTIER HUMOR Ed PiacEntino WHEn onE tHinKs of tHE analoguEs and antEcEdEnts of antebellum southern humor, the usual candidates are: Ebenezer Cook’s comical satire, The Sot-weed Factor; or a Voyage to Maryland (1708), William Byrd II’s Dividing Line histories, Dr. Alexander Hamilton’s mid-eighteenth-century satire, “The History of the Tuesday Club,” Rudolph Raspe’s Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns (1785), the comic eclogues of William Henry Timrod (the father of the Henry Timrod, often lauded as the poet laureate of the Confederacy), Mason Locke Weems’s “Awful History of Young Dred Drake” (1812), and segments of James Kirke Paulding’s Letters from the South (1817) and his play, The Lion of the West (1830). Other precursors include Washington Irving’s widely popular “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) and “Rip Van Winkle”(1819), Joseph Doddridge’s play, Dialogue of the Backwoodsman and the Dandy, 1st Recited at the Buffaloe [Creek Va.] Seminary, July 1, 1821 (1823), the rustic Yankee or Down East humor of Seba Smith and others popular in the early 1830s, and the sporting sketches found in early nineteenth-century British periodicals such as The London Sporting Magazine and Bell’s Life in London, and in British books such as Pierce Egan’s two collections, Anecdotes, Original and Selected of the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage (1827) and Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports and Mirror of Life: Embracing the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage (1836).1 There is yet another candidate: Henry Junius Nott of South Carolina, a writer, unlike most of those previously mentioned, who is veritably unknown or forgotten today. When scholars come across the name Henry Junius Nott, few, if any, have ever heard of him. Even fewer have heard of his book, Novelettes of a Traveller; or, Odds and Ends from the Knapsack of HEnry Junius nott and tHE roots of soutHErn frontiEr HuMor [ 19 ] Thomas Singularity, published in two volumes by Harper and Brothers in 1834. Still fewer have actually read Novelettes, even the long first section, “Biographical Sketch of Thomas Singularity,” the most humorously fertile part of Nott’s work. Yet, the “Biographical Sketch of Thomas Singularity” preceded Augustus Baldwin Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes (1835), generally considered the foundational text of southern frontier humor and a book that allegedly featured first some of the themes, subjects, and character types of the genre. What I hope to do, then, is to demonstrate that Nott’s “Biographical Sketch” anticipates some of the materials that southern humorists would similarly employ, and in so doing to argue that Nott’s work represents an embryonic stage in the development of what would become a new American genre: the humor of the Old South. But, first, I want to raise a question: Who was Henry Junius Nott? The son of prominent judge Abraham Nott, Nott was born in the Union District of South Carolina on November 4, 1797.2 Raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Henry Nott attended Columbia Academy and entered South Carolina College in 1810, graduating in 1814. He then read law, and shortly after being admitted to the bar in 1818, Nott and his law partner , Colonel David J. McCord, collected and published Reports of Cases Determined by the Constitutional Court of South Carolina (1818, 1819, and 1820). Realizing his interest in literature exceeded his interest in practicing law, Nott abandoned his law practice and in 1821 traveled to Europe, where, for the next three years, he studied in France and Holland, read widely in literary texts, and gained facility in French, German, and other modern foreign languages. After returning to Columbia in 1824, Nott was appointed professor of criticism, logic, and the philosophy of languages at his alma mater, South Carolina College, a position he held until his untimely death in 1837. Given his career path in academe, it is not surprising that Nott became an accomplished scholar, publishing biographical essays on Erasmus, Dr. Samuel Parr, Daniel Wyttenback, and Louis Courier, and articles on D’Aguesseau and Defoe—all in the Southern Review and all indicators of the diverse range of his intellectual interests. What we know of Nott’s personality seems appropriate for a humorist. Maximilian LaBorde, who apparently knew Nott, writes: In his personal and social relations he was most agreeable. He had great amiability of temper, and cheerfulness of spirit. Though [18.191.189.140] Project...

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