BRIGHT SKIES AND DARK SHADOWS

New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1890.. 316pp. plus a color frontispiece map of the Florida peninsula, three plates and three maps. Original green publisher's cloth, spine gilt. Moderate chipping and wear to head of spine, front hinge cracked, light shelf wear. Interior generally bright and clean. Overall a good plus copy. A travelogue in the form of a collection of written sketches about the American South during and after the Civil War by author and clergyman, Henry M. Field. Field, told by his doctor to travel south for his health, took a trip from New York to Florida, stopping by battlefields and communities of color. His sketches run from his own analysis of postwar racial tensions between Black and White in the South to descriptions of the countryside that was previously a theater of war. The first seven chapters deal with Florida, and Field was also "deeply concerned with the problems of reconstruction in the South" (Clark). "With a long chapter on the Battle of Franklin, Tenn." - Nevins. An interesting view of the post-Civil War American South by a popular travel writer of the late 19th century. NEVINS I, p.87. CLARK I:311. SERVIES 9594.