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C R A
D L E O F C
O P P E R H E A D S
Edited by Paul Douglass.
McGraw-Hill Book Co.,
New York City, New York 1988.
275 pp.
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Cradle of Copperheads is a
fictionalized account of Jesse
Stuart’s tenure as the school-district
superintendent in Greenup County,
Kentucky, schools. It depicts a young,
idealistic college-educated teacher,
Shan Stringer, battling small town
corruption, prejudice and ignorance
during the hard years of the Great
Depression. Stringer’s arch nemesis is
Ace Ruggles, a vile, conniving
politician, and the local political power
structure that he rules is a snake pit
of corruption. It is colorful story, filled
with tragedy, satire, humor, and above
all Stuart’s compassion for the people
he writes about.
This was essentially Stuart’s first
real attempt at a novel. Beyond the
Dark Hills, his first published
novel, was simply a lengthy term
paper, which was not written with
publication in mind. In the Thread
that Runs So True he claimed that
the manuscript of the book was burned,
but after forty years he returned to it
and completely reworked the manuscript,
improving the story in a number of ways.
The revised manuscript was not published
during his lifetime, but was issued
posthumously, with Paul Douglass
providing final editing, under the
auspicious of the Jesse Stuart
Foundation, of Ashland, Kentucky. There
is a certain irony that Stuart’s first
written novel was the last one
published, which he did live to see.
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