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The Golden Christmas The book The Golden Christmas by South Carolinas eminent dramatist, critic, poet, historian and accomplished novelist, William Gilmore Simms (1806 - 1870) was originally published in 1852. Besides being a low country lifes romantic tale of lovers from two different races i. e. the French and the English, the book also alludes to and unveils much of the hidden prejudices innately possessed and practiced by the people of these nations against each other. The feelings of prejudice, vanity and pride shared by the English and the Huguenot the French families, which can be found existing even today, finds their origin in the highest order of rancor for each other especially in the colonial era. The Golden Christmas thus traces the growth of the region on the one hand and elucidates the inherent elements of pride and prejudice nourishing within the hearts of people of two different races since the colonial era and carried through the Revolution and into the antebellum (before the war) period.
Major Bulmer and Madame Girardin family had been quarreling bitterly with each other for years. Major Bulmer's son Ned Bulmer likes Madame Girardin granddaughter Paula Bonneau. The children did not share the same attitude as their parents. Major Bulmer would not consent to the marriage of the two. Because Paula Bonneau was a French girl. Later on after an accident Major Bulmer began to have a change of heart toward Madame Girardin and her granddaughter and was finally compelled to agree on the proposal of marriage of his son with a French girl.
Rampant with details from events of historical value determining the causes of such an animosity and spiced up with comedian characters, The Golden Christmas is best known for a timeless tale of South Carolina's rich holiday tradition. Originally published in 1852, William Gilmore Simms's classic low country romance archives commensurate with social customs and Christmas traditions of a plantation near Charleston before the war. Deeply moved by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, Gilmore Simms builds his plot on the pride of a Huguenot French family, and the prejudice of an English family. It also explains at length the desperate state and burning desires of the race-crossed lovers, Ned Bulmer and Paula Bonneau, to gain the blessings of their both parents, yet at daggers drawn and feuding amid a jolly and frenetic holiday season. William Gilmore Simms fills his novel brimming with a lively casta learned Northern professor, a young English nobleman, narrow-minded widows, a stormy plantation owner, a haughty servant, a coachman known to be a pig-thieve, and last but not the least the corrective role of a good-hearted barrister. Intertwined into the text are absorbing details about the fulsome decorations and festivities that were the trademark traditions of the Christmas celebrations in the South of the ante-war period.
Lively fireworks, candles nestled in holly, games of whist and backgammon, Yule logs, eggnog, and a visit from Father Christmases, all play their parts as the story unfolds. Here, too, are accurate descriptions of dress, dialogue, recreation, cultural traditions, social ladder of succession the per idee, and a colorful tableau of a shopping trip to Charleston's King, Queen, and the Meeting streets in the 1850 s. The novel of Identical parts on etiquette and witty romance, The Golden Christmas is now, as it has always been, a holiday gift to lovers of Southern tradition from South Carolina's most famous author, William Gilmore Simms This edition of The Golden Christmas includes an introduction by a great contemporary historian David Aiken. Works Cited Book Reference: Simms, William Gilmore (18061870). The Golden Christmas. A Tale of Lowcountry Life (2005).
University of South Carolina Press. ISBN: 1 57003 612 8. (Introduction by David Aiken, English teacher at College of Charleston & the Citadel) Trade Paperback (US). Glued binding. 168 pages. Price: $ 14. 83.
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Research essay sample on Colonial Era South Carolina
