Tourgée, Albion Winegar (1838-1905)

Tourgée, Albion Winegar (1838-1905)

American lawyer and novelist, known for his depiction, realistic in background and detail, of the Reconstruction period in the South after the Civil War.

His works include 'Toinette ( 1874), reissued in 1881 as A Royal Gentleman; Figs and Thistles ( 1879); A Fool's Errand ( 1879); Bricks without Straw ( 1880); John Eax and Mamelon ( 1882); Hot Plowshares ( 1883); Button's Inn ( 1887); With Gauge and Swallow ( 1889); Pactolus Prime ( 1890); The Mortgage on the Hiproof House ( 1896). These are particularly marked by an understanding of the problems of the Negro.

Tourgée fought in the Northern army during the Civil War, and later went to North Carolina as a carpetbagger. As a judge in the superior court of the state he helped to break up the Ku Klix Klan, and much of the material in his books was based on first-hand experience.

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