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Asheville-Buncombe Library |
UNC Asheville |
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Christian Reid |
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| Title | Christian Reid |
| Alt. Title | Writers and Mountains: Christian Reid |
| Identifier | |
| Creator | Special Collections, D.H. Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina Asheville |
| Subject Keyword | Christian Reid ; Southern Appalachians ; writers ; mountains ; Appalachians ; mountaineers ; Great Smoky Mountains ; |
| Subject LCSH |
Reid, Christian Appalachian Region, Southern -- Description and travel American literature -- Appalachian Region, Southern -- History and criticism American literature -- Appalachian Mountains -- History and criticism Appalachians (People) in literature Appalachian Region, Southern -- Description and travel |
| Description | Biographical information and bibliography of literary contributions related to western North Carolina. |
| Publisher | Special Collections, D.H. Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804 |
| Contributor | |
| Date | Date digital: 2007-12-20 |
| Type | Collection ; Text ; Images ; |
| Format | Digital exhibit |
| Source | D. H. Ramsey Library Special Collections - Multiple collections, |
| Language | English |
| Relation | Is part of: Writers and Mountains web exhibit, Special Collections, D.H. Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville |
| Coverage | |
| Rights | No restrictions; Copyright: Retained by the authors of certain items in the collection, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law. |
| Donor | N/A |
| Acquisition | N/A |
| Citation | Writers and Mountains web exhibit, Special Collections, D.H. Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville |
| Processed by | Helen Wykle 2007 |
| Last update | 2007-12-14 |
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Biographical Information |
Born in Salisbury, NC, Frances Christine Fisher Tiernan took the pen name
"Christian Reid" to allow her to compete with her male counterparts. She
often wrote of the western part of her state in a style sometimes
described by later critics as "a graceful, limpid style", "bland" and
"sylvan romances". There is in her fiction an over-reliance on the
picturesque that was popular in the years following the Civil War, yet,
her work stands apart from the many narratives of travel in Appalachia in
its honest and realistic portrait of life in southern society. Short
stories such as A Summer Idyl, a serialized romance is interwoven
with descriptions of rustic lives, and soaring vistas and her "Land of the
Sky", another serialized story of summer travelers in the western state,
reportedly led to the adoption of this famous phrase as a descriptive
title for the western region of the state. The use of the phrase "Land of
the Sky" was particularly popular with those who developed travel
literature for western North Carolina, and is repeatedly found in Southern
Railway literature.
Frances Fisher married James M. Tiernan in 1887. Tiernan was a widower who had become wealthy through the purchase of silver mines in Mexico. In addition to her travel writing about western North Carolina, Christian Reid, also wrote early accounts of travel in Mexico where she traveled widely with her husband. Her delight in travel and the exploration of new geographies can be found in the many settings of her later novels that also chronicle her adventures in New York, in the West Indies, and in Europe. Her last years were spent in Salisbury where she continued to write until her death in 1920. |
| Writing samples: | The Land of the Sky (1876) "On the western side of this "land of the sky" runs the chain of the Great Smoky --- comprising the groups of the Iron, the Unaka, and the Roan Mountains --- which, from its massiveness of form and general elevation, is the master-chain of the whole Allegheny range. Though its highest summits are a few feet lower than the peaks of the Black mountain, it presents a continuous series of high peaks which nearly approach that altitude --- its culminating point, Clingman's Dome, rising to the height of six thousand six hundred and sixty feet. Though its magnitude is much greater than that of the Blue Ridge, this range is cut at various points by the mountain-rivers, which with resistless impetuosity tear their way through the the heart of its superb heights in gorges of terrific grandeur. Scenery grand as any which tourists cross a continent to admire is buried in these remote fastnesses, utterly unknown save to the immediate inhabitants of the country, and a few adventurous spirits who have penetrated thither. For the wild magnificence of the scenes along its water-ways, Western North Carolina cannot be surpassed. The fame of the French Broad has somewhat gone abroad, but who knows anything of the Pigeon and Tennessee, the Tuckaseege and Hiawassee? The beauties in which the lesser streams abound are scarcely heeded by the people themselves, and one find glens in which the silver flash and rainbow-spray of tumultuous cataracts make the forest glorious, where one feels that the spot, as far as sight-seers are concerned, is virgin indeed." Reid, Christian. "The Land of the Sky," |
| Bibliography: |
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Reid, "The
Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter I Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter II Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter III Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter IV Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter V Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter VI Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter VII Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter VIII Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter IX Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter X Reid, "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XI Reid, The Land of the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XII Reid, The Land of the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XIII Reid, The Land in the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XIV Reid, The Land of the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XV Reid, The Land of the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XVI Reid, The Land of the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XVII Reid, The Land in the Sky, or Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter XVIII Reid, "The Mountain Region of North Carolina, " Appletons Journal: a magazine of general literature, Volume 2, Issue 13, March 1877. |
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