0 Reactions

Seventy-Six (novel)

Seventy-Six AuthorJohn NealCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishGenreHistorical fictionSet inAmerican Revolutionary WarPublisherJoseph Robinson1823Pages528 (first edition)OCLC12207391
Seventy-Six is a historical fiction novel by John Neal. Published in Baltimore in 1823, it is the fourth novel written about the American Revolutionary War and the first work of American fiction to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch. Historically distinguished for its pioneering use of colloquial language, Yankee dialect, battle scene realism, high characterization, stream of consciousness narrative, profanity, and depictions of sex and romance, the novel foreshadowed and influenced later American writers. The narrative prose resembles spoken American English more than any other literature of its period.

The story is told by Continental Army soldier Jonathan Oadley and follows multiple love stories that interweave with battle scenes and the overall progress of the war. It explores male pain and self-loathing resulting from violent acts committed in war and duels. A response to James Fenimore Cooper's The Spy (1821) and inspired by Neal's work on A History of the American Revolution (1819), the novel was written over twenty-seven days in early 1822. It was generally well-received at publication, raised Neal's national status as an author, and is considered by some scholars and the author himself to be his best novel, though consensus among scholars is that the book is more of a failure in construction than it is a success in style. It is largely unknown to modern readers.

Plot
The book is written in first-person perspective by narrator Jonathan Oadley as an old man remembering the American Revolutionary War. It opens with an expression of urgency he feels in recording his memories for posterity: "Yes, my children, I will no longer delay it." His story begins in New Jersey in the early winter of 1776, with residents fearing British and Hessian raiding parties following George Washington's retreat through the area. Twenty-two-year-old Jonathan and his twenty-year-old brother Archibald decide to join the Continental Army, along with their sixty-year-old father Jonathan senior, cousin Arthur Rodman, and neighbor Robert Arnauld. Arnauld's daughters Clara and Lucia become the brothers' love interests.

While the Oadley brothers recruit soldiers from the area, Colonel George R. Clinton arrives to train the new cavalry unit. Clinton vaguely brags of his connections to Washington, befriends Archibald, and awards him with a commission as captain. While training, the Oadley home is burned by Hessians, who wound the elder Jonathan and kidnap Arthur's love interest, Mary Austin. The characters all assume her to be killed. Soon after, the Oadleys stumble into their first battle, in which Archibald is wounded. He recovers in time for the three to fight in the Battle of Trenton, in which the elder Jonathan is killed.

While Jonathan, Archibald, Arthur, and Clinton participate in the New York and New Jersey campaign, multiple romantic stories unfold. Lucia courts and is courted by both Clinton and Archibald. Jonathan and Clara become romantically involved but Jonathan engages in a brief fling with her younger and more flirtatious cousin, Ellen Sampson. Mary Austin reappears and is reunited with Arthur in Philadelphia, but expresses romantic interest in the older Robert, whom Jonathan calls "a profligate�a voluptuary�a sensualist, perhaps". Archibald and Clinton compete for Lucia's affection, which leads to Archibald killing Clinton in a sword duel. Volume I ends with Archibald being arrested for the duel by military police.

Volume II opens with Washington pardoning Archibald for killing Clinton. The Oadleys get to know a Northern officer Chester Copely, who is hated by the Virginia troops and kills a Major Ellis of Virginia in a pistol duel. Copely, Jonathan, Archibald, and Arthur participate in the Battle of Brandywine, Battle of Germantown, winter at Valley Forge, and Battle of Monmouth, at which Jonathan is wounded, loses a leg, and is sent home. Jonathan marries Clara, Copely marries Ellen, and Arthur marries Mary in a joint ceremony, but the story becomes focused on the courtship between Archibald and Lucia. With the narrator removed from the battlefield, news of the war continues to come from letters and visits from Archibald and Arthur, who are now serving in the Southern theater.

Archibald becomes disillusioned with war, contracts tuberculosis, and returns home. Jonathan and Clara then become occupied with convincing Archibald and Lucia to marry each other, who are both reluctant because of their own seemingly fatal illnesses. In the final chapter, Archibald confesses to Jonathan that he considers himself a murderer because of a neighbor he killed in a duel before the war. Archibald and Lucia finally consent to marriage and the ceremony concludes the story:

stood suddenly erect upon his feet; the light flashed over his face. It was the face of a dead man. He fell upon the floor: a loud shriek followed. Where were we? Where! We ran to him�we raised him up. It was too late! Almighty God! it was too late! HIS WIFE WAS A WIDOW.

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

Load Full (0)