Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty

Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1867) is an American Civil War novel by veteran John William DeForest. In contrast to much of the Civil War fiction that had gone before it, Miss Ravenel's Conversion portrayed war not in the chivalric, idealized manner of Walter Scott, but as a bloody and inglorious hell. Though William Dean Howells praised DeForest as a "realist before realism was named", most critics have argued that the Romantic elements of his plot mix poorly with the otherwise admirable realism of the battle scenes. The novel is often cited as a possible influence on Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, though the evidence that Crane had read the novel remains inconclusive. This book isn't just a war novel. It's a love story between a noble man to his country and a woman who is battling her true feelings with the right man instead of choosing someone because he was flattering.

Editions

• De Forest, John W. Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1867.
• De Forest, John W. Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty. (Ed. Scharnhorst, Gary) New York: Penguin, 2000 (still in print)

External links

• Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty — full text on-line.