Man Apart - by Harold B Gill & George M Curtis (Paperback)

About the Book

From 1774 until mid-1777, Nicholas Cresswell, a young English farmer bent on starting a new life in northwestern Virginia, kept a journal that serves as a distinctive window into the turbulent politics of the American Revolution. This modern edition is unexpurgated and fully a...

Book Synopsis

From 1774 until mid-1777, Nicholas Cresswell, a young English farmer bent on starting a new life in northwestern Virginia, kept a journal that serves as a distinctive window into the turbulent politics of the American Revolution. This modern edition is unexpurgated and fully annotated with an introduction that provides a detailed historical context for the work.

Review Quotes

Readers will find Gill and Curtis's contribution useful in a variety of ways, from their well-written introduction to the copious endnotes and extensive bibliography. This edition of Cresswell's journal deserves recognition as well as a wide readership.

Englishman Nicholas Creswell arrived in Virginia intending to stake out a future for himself in the Backcountry, and instead his project came a cropper in the American Revolution. His diary is a tremendous Loyalist account of the early days of the Revolution, when what seemed to Creswell the most blessed people in the world sacrificed their liberty to the mania for 'liberty' -a repressively egalitarian democracy. Military events, economic developments, sexual mores, life among the Indians, religious currents, the distinct characters of different colonies, and numerous other aspects of Revolutionary history are elucidated as nowhere else in this fabulously edited new edition.

The journal of Nicholas Cresswell has been published previously, in whole and in part. Yet the meticulous annotation by Gill and Curtis greatly enhances its usefulness and value. An informative introduction provides helpful context. Topical chapters organize the body of the journal (following the manuscript structure). Extensive explanatory notes at the close of each chapter support specific references by Cresswell.... Their work and care to make this remarkable journal as informative as possible is apparent at every turn. The result serves both scholarly and amateur purposes very well. The supporting material also makes it suitable for classroom adoption (indeed, undergraduates may respond well to this young man with all his attitude and ambition).

About the Author

Harold B. Gill Jr. is consulting editor of the Colonial Williamsburg Journal. George M. Curtis III is professor of American history at Hanover College.