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Set deep in the Appalachian wilderness between the years of 1779 and 1784, The Land Breakers is a saga like the Norse sagas or the book of Genesis, a story of first and last things, of the violence of birth and death, of inescapable sacrifice and the faltering emergence of community. Mooney and Imy Wright, twenty-one, former indentured servants, long habituated to backbreaking work but not long married, are traveling west. They arrive in a no-account settlement in North Carolina and, on impulse, part with all their savings to acquire a patch of land high in the mountains. With a little livestock and a handful of crude tools, they enter the mountain world—one of transcendent beauty and cruel necessity—and begin to make a world of their own. Mooney and Imy are the first to confront an unsettled country that is sometimes paradise and sometimes hell. They will soon be followed by others. John Ehle is a master of the American language. He has an ear for dialogue and an eye for nature and a grasp of character that have established The Land Breakers as one of the great fictional reckonings with the making of America.
A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the “trail where they cried.” The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed. B & W photographs
Reissue of the classic novel The Winter People, scanned from the original 1981 First Edition.
When first published in 1957, "Move Over, Mountain" was considered to be the first book written by a white novelist that portrayed African-Americans without stereotype. It received positive reviews from several major publications, but was shunned by segregated bookstores and libraries. There was only one US printing of "Move Over, Mountain." The following year it was published by Hodder and Stoughton of London, England. A story of personal and social struggle, the New York Times said of John Ehle in 1957, "It is quite obvious that he writes from a deep knowledge of his subject, and an understanding of technique rare in a first novelist."
A motley band of characters makes its way into a high mountain valley in northwestern North Carolina to tame the land or to be consumed by it. Five years of struggle to create a community ensue, in which part of the struggle is just to survive. This is the story of late 18th century life in an untamed country.
Last One Home, the final book in John Ehle's masterful Appalachian series that traces the King family from The Land Breakers in 1779, as the first white settlers in the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina, through the Great Depression in Last One Home. Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), says John Ehle "is our foremost writer of historical fiction." John Ehle's sense of place, his ear for language, and his ability to shape characters with love and a gentle sense of humor make Last One Home one of the great novels of all time.
In 1928 New York native Muriel Earley Sheppard moved with her mining engineer husband to the Toe River Valley -- an isolated pocket in North Carolina between the Blue Ridge and Iron Mountains. Sheppard began visiting her neighbors and forming friendships in remote coves and rocky clearings, and in 1935 her account of life in the mountains -- Cabins in the Laurel -- was published. The book included 128 striking photographs by the well-known Chapel Hill photographer, Bayard Wootten, a frequent visitor to the area. The early reviews of Cabins in the Laurel were overwhelmingly positive, but the mountain people -- Sheppard's friends and subjects -- initially felt that she had portrayed them as too old-fashioned, even backward. As novelist John Ehle shows in his foreword, though, fifty years have made a huge difference, and the people of the Toe River Valley have been among its most affectionate readers. This new large-format edition, which makes use of many of Wootten's original negatives, will introduce Sheppard's words and Wootten's photography to a whole new generation of readers -- in the Valley and beyond.
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"A genial guide to making cheeses and wines at home, plus history, anecdotes and other interesting lore about two of man's oldest crafts." --Dust jacket.
This moving narrative by Ehle describes the experiences of a handful of dedicated young students, both black and white, during the 1963-64 civil rights protests in Chapel Hill, N.C. First published in 1965 by Harper & Row, the work was controversial but won the Mayflower Award for Nonfiction.