"For Raintree County is not the country of the perishable fact. It is the country of the enduring fiction. The clock in the Court House Tower on page five of the Raintree County Atlas is always fixed at nine o'clock, and it is summer and the days are long."
--Raintree County, by Ross Lockridge, Jr.
Other Materials and Facsimiles Apropos
Draft page from Raintree County, Ross Lockridge, Jr. (120 k)
Original Raintree County Map Sketch by the Author (73 k) & as Published (65 k)
"The Riddle of Raintree County" Map Cover Sketch by the Author (77 k)
Raintree County Cover Sketch (62 k)
Town of Waycross Sketch (176 k) & as Published (37 k)
Sketch by Ross Lockridge, Jr. :Danwebster Graveyard
Source Materials:
"Dozens of established members of the
family of writers, from Homer and Moses to Harriet Beecher Stowe
and Whitman, crisscross the pages of Raintree County,
but he felt especially buoyed by those obscure writers within
his own family tree. The Shockley family archive was there at
hand in Boston, a treasure that gave him a sense of fellowship
and potency. He had the Henry County Atlas with its fine
lithographs showing the old courthouse with the hands of its
clock forever fixed at nine. He had tintypes of the Shockleys
standing at the Old Home Place and of a reclining John Wesley
Shockley musing on life and holding a copy of The Indianapolis
News. He had the family's Civil War letters, the love letters
of John Wesley Shockley and Emma Rhoton, and specimens of handwriting
with sentimental posies exchanged at Henry County's vanished
Pedee College. He had the old ledger of his great-grandfather
William B. Shockley-doctor, preacher, farmer-with its botanical
recipes and testimonials.
It was this Shockley who began
the family tradition of versifying, and my father treasured the
parchments of his two lengthy "pomes" on tobacco...."
--From, Shade of the Raintree, Larry Lockridge, p 239
Poem, "...'Tis Summer and the days are long." By John W. Shockley
Poem, "A Summer Dream," by John W. Shockley
Emma
Rhoton and John Wesley Shockley's letters:
| Facsimile | Transcriptions |
The Dance of the Bottles, poem by John Wesley Shockley using the alias, Will Western (358 k)
William B. Shockley (1801-76), poem: Tobacco, p. 1: p. 2, p. 3.
"Some do it chew and some it smoke
whilst some it up their nose do poke."
William B. Shockley (1801-76), From "Book of Miscellanies" botanical recipes on Cathartics; and Reasons for believing.
Other Materials Apropos the Author:
Ross Lockridge, Jr. LETTERS from Paris, 1933-4 (age 19-20):
The "idea-genesis of Raintree County"-- A brief history with transcription of letter: April 30, 1934 "I'm now installed at my new residence, 4bis Rue d'Ulm, Paris...." Facsimiles, Ap30, 1934 p. 1 (151 k) p. 2 (151 k)
Oct 8, 1933 p1, 2 - "Before I give you the latest developments along the European front . . . ."
Oct. 23, 1933 p1, 2 - "I write this letter in the gray of Paris morning . . . ."
Nov. 3, 1933 p1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - "This is going to be a huge letter . . . ."
Nov. 19, 1933 p1, 2, 3, 4 - "Work at the Sorbonne now promises to be very exacting . . . ."
Feb. 10, 1934 p1, 2, 3, 4 - "Have you felt any alarm over the exasperated condition of Paris?"
May 9, 1934 p.1 & p.2: "I'm hitting mean weather just at present in my school work . . . ."
Ross Lockridge, Jr.'s Notes on James Joyce, Sept. 1942 (371 k), and Spring 1943 (429 k).
To Planning notes for "The Dream of the Flesh of Iron", an unpublished poem by Ross Lockridge, Jr.
Example of Ross, Jr.'s Shorthand (84 k) and an account of their decipherment, Unlocking the Lockridge Diaries, by Mary Louise Gilman, 1995.
Ross Lockridge, Jr.'s attention to details of historic accuracy
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