Fred Lewis Pattee, long regarded as the father of American literary study, also wrote fiction. Originally published in 1905 by Henry Holt, The House of the Black Ring was Pattee’s second novel—a local-color romance set in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania. The book’s plot is driven by family feud, forbidden love, and a touch of the supernatural. This new edition makes this novel accessible to new generations of modern-day readers. General readers will find in The House of the Black Ring a thriller that preserves details of rural life and language during the late nineteenth century. Scholars will read it as an expression of cultural anxiety and change in the decades after the Civil War.
An introduction by poet and essayist Julia Spicher Kasdorf situates the novel within the context of social and literary history, as well as Pattee’s own biography, and provides a compelling argument for its importance, not only as a literary artifact or record of local customs, but also as a reflection of Pattee’s own story intertwined with the history of Penn State at the turn of the twentieth century. Joshua Brown draws on his expertise in Pennsylvania German ethno-linguistics to interpret the dialect writing and to give readers a clearer view of the customs and regionalisms depicted in the book.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction Julia Spicher Kasdorf
Note on the Publication History James L. W. West III
The House of the Black Ring
Preface to the 1916 Edition
I. The Affair at Tressler’s Farm
II. Where the Devil Treads, Who Looks for Snow?
III. Rose Hartswick
IV. The Wooing at Hartswick Hall
V. The Horse-Racing on Moon Run
VI. The Windy Side of the Law
VII. The Flitting Dinner
VIII. The Firing of Heller’s Cabin
IX. The Fire on Cherry Creek
X. The Mill Down Foaming Valley
XI. Lona Heller
XII. The Play and the Chorus
XIII. The Pow-wowing at Roaring Run
XIV. In the Wild Azalea
XV. The Murder in Sugar Valley
XVI. The Mob at Heller’s Gap
XVII. The Hour of the Powers of Darkness
XVIII. In the Heart of the Limestone
XIX. The Last of the Hartswicks
XX. The Revenge of Matthew Heller
Notes
Bibliography
“Editors Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Joshua Brown not only reproduce a highly entertaining regional story in The House of the Black Ring but also contribute to vital local color and Pennsylvania German studies. Fred Lewis Pattee’s ‘haunting’ style and romantic viewpoint compare interestingly with the work of other writers of Pennsylvania Dutch local color, such as Helen Riemensnyder Martin and Elsie Singmaster.
Pattee’s novel questions the meaning of ‘home’ among turn-of-the-century America’s expanding multicultural population. As an ‘outlander’—a native New Englander living among the Pennsylvania Dutch—Pattee’s personal sense of otherness adds a poignant twist to his portrayal of his ethnic neighbors. Fascinatingly, the over one-hundred-year-old story voices a topic relevant to American society today: the search for ‘belonging’ among a diverse and dynamic people.”
—Susan Colestock Hill, author of Heart Language: Elsie Singmaster and Her Pennsylvania German Writings
