3.5
1876
ByPublisher Description
The third volume of Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year.
------Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile. The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire.
------"A glorious piece of writing," said Jimmy Breslin in Harper's. "Vidal can take history and make it powerful and astonishing." Time concurred: "Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past."
------With a new Introduction by the author.
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3.5
Justin Clark
Created 7 months agoShare
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“With his characteristic verve and historical acuity, Gore Vidal brings the United States’ centennial year alive in 1876 (1976), the third book published of his “Narratives of Empire.”
Charles Schuyler, the scribe of Aaron Burr, returns to the United States with his daughter—after decades away in Europe—to find New York City, and indeed the whole country, transformed. Gone are the clapboard houses and the provincial atmosphere and ascendant are the monuments to commerce and cosmopolitanism. Schuyler finds himself caught within the currents of the 1876 presidential election, which pitted New York Governor Samuel Tilden against Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. Schulyer is covering it all for the newspapers, hob-nobbing it with figures like Mark Twain and future president James Garfield, all while maneuvering himself to be the future ambassador to France if Tilden is elected. As one of the most contested elections in American history, wherein corruption, voter intimidation, and pure graft reigned supreme, the 1876 contest for the White House saw Tilden garnering the popular vote but Hayes the electoral college and thus the presidency. Such is the terminus of the first American century.
Alongside the political scene, Vidal gives us a glimpse into the class politics of the “Gilded Age,” full of society parties and jockeying for prominence. His daughter, Emma, becomes enraptured by it all, initially offering to wed the son of a wealthy industrialist before betrothing herself to a widower with a penchant for social darwinism. Charles, meanwhile, indulges in elaborate dinners, liaisons at houses of ill-repute, and gossiping with the real movers and shakers in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
Vidal’s writing seems effortless in this novel, deftly bouncing between the intimate and the political. He weaves historical exposition so seamlessly that one is eager to learn of a new character or historical anecdote. Vidal also captures the feeling of that era, not far removed from the Civil War, when another “war between the states” didn’t appear implausible. While not as rewarding a read as Burr, 1876 is an excellent continuation of Vidal’s sprawling American saga.”
efost
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veja
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“Quite a mistake to read this at the same time as Hunter S. Thompson's own election cycle coverage -- 4/10”
Maggie
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Angela M
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About Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) was born at the United States Military Academy at West Point. His first novel, Williwaw, written when he was 19 years old and serving in the army, appeared in the spring of 1946. He wrote 23 novels, five plays, many screenplays, short stories, well over 200 essays, and a memoir.
Other books by Gore Vidal
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