§3. Survivors of the Old School: Cooke; Bagby. IV. The New South: Lanier. Vol. 16. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.

IV. The New South: Lanier.

§ 3. Survivors of the Old School: Cooke; Bagby.

Of course, those who had written before the war still tried to gain a livelihood from the pen, but they continued the manner and traditions of the Old South. John Esten Cooke, 2 for example, carried on in Virginia the tradition of the school of Scott and Cooper, then elsewhere becoming archaic. George William Bagby (1828–83), 3 also of Virginia, renewed his newspaper productions and added the lyceum to his resources. But so intense a lover of the Old Dominion and its civilization could suffer no sea-change even in the fiery baptism of war. He tried to deliver his lecture The Virginia Negro in New York, but the reception was unmistakably cool. Life “befo’ de war” had not yet become for the North a charming memory from a land of romance.