Dead and Gone: Classic Crimes of North Carolina

by Manly Wade Wellman

Overview

Violent dealth is amazingly apt to remind us of vigorous life; these ten stories of classic North Carolina murders which occurred between 1808 and 1914 represent a much neglected part of the exciting history of the state. Victims include a Confederate general, a lovely orphan girl, a pathetic little boy, and a highly offensive political boss. The motives are the usual ones -- gain, revenge, "elimination," and jealousy.

The plaintive history and untimely death of Naomi Wise -- "poor 'Omi" they called her in Randolph County over five generations ago -- strikingly counterparts Dreiser's An American Tragedy; Ida Bell Warren, the veritable Lady Macbeth of Forsyth County; the arsenic poisoner of old Fayetteville; the kidnapping of Kenneth Beasley near the site of the Lost Colony; the almost perfect crime, the murder of the hated Reconstruction Senator "Chicken" Stephens of Caswell County, which in spite of the efforts of Claude G. Bowers and others went unsolved for years; the mad jealousy of Frankie Silver of Burke County which ended with bitter justice at the end of the law's noosed rope, the first woman hanged in the state -- these and other lively stories of famous North Carolina murders make fascinating reading.

The stories, told with authority and inviting informality, employ material from newspapers, court records, letters, family collections, and numerous works of local history. They evoke a feeling for a past time and place as well as for the untidy events themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807867174
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	11/09/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	205
File size:	539 KB

About the Author

Manly Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903 - April 5, 1986) was an award-winning American writer. Although his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, he is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales, and for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region.

Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction. He received many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award. In 2013, the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation inaugurated an award named after him to honor other North Carolina authors of science fiction and fantasy.

Three of Wellman’s most famous recurring protagonists are (1) John, aka John the Balladeer, aka “Silver John”, a wandering backwoods minstrel with a silver-stringed guitar, (2) the elderly “occult detective” Judge Pursuivant, and (3) John Thunstone, also an occult investigator.

Born in the village of Kamundongo in Portuguese West Africa (now Angola), where his father was stationed as a medical officer, Wellman spoke the native dialect before he learned English, and became an adopted son of a powerful chief whose vision his father restored. His family moved to the United States when he was young. He graduated from Wichita State University in Kansas with a BA in English in 1926 and received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Columbia Law School.

His first story “The Lion Roared,” based on the stories told to him in his African childhood upbringing, was published in Thrilling Tales in 1927, and his first science fiction novel The Invading Asteroid was published in 1929, though he did not publish extensively until his move to New York in 1934.

He died in North Carolina in 1986, aged 82.