A Fool's Errand
by Albion Winegar Tourgée
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At a glance:
- Author: Albion Winegar Tourgée
- First Published: 1879
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Polemical realism
- Time of Work: 1865-1877
- Setting: Rockford County in a Southern state
- Characters: Comfort (The fool) Servosse, Metta Servosse, Lily Servosse, Nathaniel Hyman, Jerry Hunt, Melville Gurney
- Genres: Long fiction, Realism, Novel
- Subjects: Racism, South or Southerners, Nineteenth century, Lynching, Ku Klux Klan, Reconstruction, Philanthropy or philanthropists
- Locales: South (U.S.), United States, North America
The Story
In 1861, Comfort Servosse went off to the Civil War as a volunteer. This, in retrospect, was his first action as an idealistic “fool.” At age twenty-seven, he gave up a thriving Michigan law practice and a comfortable home. He considered it his duty to help fight against the wrong of slavery.
When the war ended, he was a colonel. He came back home to his wife Metta and daughter Lily. His war exertions had worn him out. Seeking a genial climate and not wanting to rebuild his law practice, he decided to move to the South and begin life afresh. Now that...
(The entire page is 2034 words.)
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