Many FPR readers will enjoy the new symposium, “Views on Hawthorne, Simms, History, and Progress,” in ANAMNESIS, A Journal for the Study of Tradition, Place, and ‘Things Divine.’ Professors Sean Busick and Lee Trepanier separately elucidate how two greats of middle nineteenth century American Literature reflected brilliantly on the past and on problems with gnostic thinking about the future. The Trepanier essay has already been featured in ANAMNESIS, but the Busick article is new. Moreover, Professor Busick broadens the symposium via considering the important (and often ignored) writings of William Gilmore Simms whom Edgar Allan Poe viewed as one of the best fictional authors of his time.
