{"product_id":"2940013774049","title":"John Brown's Body","description":"Stephen Vincent Benét, the author of _John Brown's Body _and one of the\u003cbr\u003emost splendid human creatures of these tragic times, was born in Bethlehem,\u003cbr\u003ePennsylvania, in 1898, the year of the Spanish War and one of the critical\u003cbr\u003emoments of American history. He was the son of an army officer, James Walker\u003cbr\u003eBenét, and of Frances Rose his wife, and he was singularly fortunate in his\u003cbr\u003einheritance. On his father's side he came of Spanish or, rather, Catalonian\u003cbr\u003estock, for his great grandfather had emigrated from the Balearic Islands to\u003cbr\u003eFlorida early in the 19th century. His mother's people were of English and\u003cbr\u003eScotch-Irish descent and lived in Pennsylvania. Thus, as a hundred critics have\u003cbr\u003enoticed, he was actually a blend of the North and South, whose conflict none was\u003cbr\u003eto understand better than he. But one might go farther and say that he was a\u003cbr\u003eblend of North and South Europe as well. His father was an officer more than\u003cbr\u003eusually accomplished in his profession, with a passion for poetry, not common\u003cbr\u003eamong experts on artillery. His paternal grandfather, General Stephen Vincent\u003cbr\u003eBenét, had played a great part in equipping the Northern armies all through the\u003cbr\u003eCivil War and rose to be Chief of Ordnance after the struggle. An uncle, Mr.\u003cbr\u003eLaurence Benét, is a distinguished mechanical engineer and co-inventor of the\u003cbr\u003eBenét-Mercier machine gun, which unhappily had to be used a great deal in the\u003cbr\u003efirst World War. The tradition of the family is military.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt should also be said of the family, all of whom I had the felicity to know,\u003cbr\u003emost of them extremely well, that it is perhaps as distinguished for charm and\u003cbr\u003eability as any family whatever. I should not hesitate to compare them with the\u003cbr\u003eAdams, the Darwins, or the Trevelyans. Stephen's elder brother, William Rose\u003cbr\u003eBenét, and his sister, Laura Benét, also his senior, are poets of noble ability.\u003cbr\u003eAnd the grace and humor of the circle left nothing to be desired. I never heard\u003cbr\u003ebetter or more unaffected conversation on literature anywhere than on the porch\u003cbr\u003eof the Commandant's quarters at Benicia, California, except possibly on the\u003cbr\u003eporch of the Commandant's quarters in Augusta, Georgia. The Colonel was the very\u003cbr\u003espirit of wit and taste in such matters and intensely diverted by the fact that\u003cbr\u003ehis children had turned into poets under his nose. And Mrs. Benét over the\u003cbr\u003etea-cups was not a whit behind him in her enjoyment and understanding of the\u003cbr\u003ephenomenon. As one privileged to share for many years the pleasures and sorrows\u003cbr\u003eof that enchanting group, I can testify that Stephen Benét was fortunate beyond\u003cbr\u003emost poets in his family environment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne point is so obvious that to mention it is almost trite. There is a real\u003cbr\u003econnection between the profession of the father and the performance of the son.\u003cbr\u003eIn the course of his career, an American soldier is likely to be stationed at\u003cbr\u003eposts all over the country. And Englishmen perhaps do not always realize quite\u003cbr\u003ewhat this means. It is as far from New York to San Francisco as from London to\u003cbr\u003eConstantinople, and as far from the Canadian border to the southern tip of Texas\u003cbr\u003eas from Birmingham to Gibraltar. And though we speak a common language, which\u003cbr\u003eall but a few eccentrics admit to be English, we have our share of local\u003cbr\u003ediversity and temperament. Stephen Benét had the experience of living in many of\u003cbr\u003ethe great regions of the republic, for each of which in turn he developed a\u003cbr\u003epredilection and sympathy. As a preparation for what he was destined to create,\u003cbr\u003esuch an opportunity to get the whole country 'into his bones' was beyond\u003cbr\u003eestimation. His love for the red-soiled rolling farmland of Pennsylvania, for\u003cbr\u003ethe yellow hills and particolored marshes of San Francisco Bay, for the\u003cbr\u003ehalf-tropic lowlands and blue-grey mountains of Georgia, for the Sussex\u003cbr\u003elandscapes of southern New England, came naturally and early and remained to him\u003cbr\u003ealways. None of our writers has had a larger sense of the country as a whole or\u003cbr\u003ein its parts, as none has made nobler use of that sense. No doubt he was born\u003cbr\u003ewith a taste for particularity and humor, which vary notably from region to\u003cbr\u003eregion in the United States, but circumstances had given every opportunity to\u003cbr\u003esatisfy any such taste. And genius, achieving a synthesis, was to do the rest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat genius, as so often happens, was apparent enough when he was a boy of\u003cbr\u003ethirteen, at the time I first knew him, for he already talked with a delightful\u003cbr\u003eand innocent maturity that was without trace of self-conscious precocity. I\u003cbr\u003estill possess a 'scroll' of verses produced by four members of the Benét family\u003cbr\u003eto celebrate my twenty-seventh birthday, which I happened to spend with them in\u003cbr\u003eGeorgia.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083226857712,"sku":"2940013774049","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013774049_p0.jpg?v=1763590056","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013774049","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}