Mason and Dixon (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Thomas Pynchon
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Plot: Historical
- Time of Work: 1761-1786
- Setting: England, Sumatra, South Africa, St. Helena, and the North American Colonies
- Principal Characters: Charles Mason, Jeremiah Dixon, Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, Nevil Maskelyne, James Bradley
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Friendship
- Locales: England
The Novel
Mason and Dixon is divided into three unequal parts, the first providing a prelude to Mason and Dixon’s adventures in America, the middle and largest detailing those adventures, and the third serving as a brief epilogue. Though it is based on an important, though little-studied, event in American history—the running of the “Mason-Dixon line” that forms the boundaries of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and thus between the American North and South—the novel is largely fantasy.
The novel opens with a narrative frame introducing the Reverend Wicks...
[The entire page is 2200 words long]
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