Foreword: Letters from Pop; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Note on Editorial Method; 1 / January 1943-July 1944: Davidson and Duke; 2 / November 1944-July 1945: Parris Island, Camp Lejeune, Quantico; 3 / March 1946-March 1948: Duke and New York; 4 / July 1948-June 1949: Durham and Flatbush; 5 / July 1949-April 1951: Valley Cottage and New York; 6 / June 1951-February 1952: Camp Lejeune and New York; 7 / March 1952-September 1952: London and Paris; 8 / October 1952-October 1953: Rome and Ravello; Appendix 1: Three Letters from Styron's Father
"I've finally pretty much decided what to write next--a novel based on Nat Turner's rebellion," twenty-six-year-old William Styron confided to his father in a letter he wrote on May 1, 1952. Styron would not publish his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner until 1967, but this letter undercuts those critics who later attacked the writer as an opportunist capitalizing on the heated racial climate of the late 1960s. From 1943 to 1953, Styron wrote over one hundred letters to William C. Styron, Sr., detailing his adventures, his works in progress, and his ruminations on the craft o
