Jefferson Davis's daughter Winnie and her star-crossed romance

Winnie Davis

It would unthinkable today: Parents opposing their daughter's marriage because of the future husband's politics or the region of his birth. But what makes history so fascinating is the various characters who stride through it. Not least among these is Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, and his formidable wife Varina Anne.

Poor daughter Winnie, the baby of Davis's six children, born in June, 1864, just weeks after her five-year-old brother fell to his death from a third-story balcony in Richmond. It was months before she had a name other than "Pie Cake."

And, as she came into the world, the old Confederacy was heading out, and her father -- old enough to be her grandfather -- was soon imprisoned. In fact, Winnie and her mom spent the first two years of Winnie's life with Davis in the damp confines of Fortress Monroe in Virginia.

But pretty Winnie, later her father's companion in public, became famous in her time as the ideal of the Old South and was dubbed The Daughter of the Confederacy.

Unfortunately, her romance with the young attorney Fred Wilkinson was doomed from the get-go. The man she'd fallen for was the grandson of a famous abolitionist -- Northern, of course -- and it was nix-nix from Mom and Dad from the start.

At 2:30 on Sunday, Heath Hardage Lee, former director of education at the Levine Museum and author of "Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause" (Potomac Books), will talk about Winnie's life and the role of women in the early days of the New South.

It's bound to be an interesting talk. A depressed Winnie eventually hurled herself across the Atlantic and began writing and publishing Victorian-age romance novels. She died at 33, and at the funeral, in the back pew, sat the man she had loved.


When: 2:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Levine Museum, 200 E. 7th St., Charlotte, 28202.
Cost: Free
To Register: 222.museumofthenewsouth.org/register

Debut novels set in the South

Is  your book club looking for excellent novels set in the South? Let me direct you to Crook's Corner Book Prize's longlist of 11 debut novels, published between Jan.1, 2013 and June 30, 2014.

One of my favorites, I'm happy to say, is on the list. It's "Byrd" (Dzanc Books) by Raleigh attorney Kim Church, the coming-of-age tale of Addie Lockwood whose failed abortion leads her to place her infant son with an adoption agency. Lockwood's longing is enduring and palpable, as is the longing of other characters for one another, present or not. "Byrd" is also on the longlist for the Flaherty Dunnan Prize, to be announced in September.

Among the other novels on the Crooks Corner list are "Flying Shoes" (Bloomsbury USA) by Lisa Howarth, a literary mystery set in Oxford, Miss.; "Heart of Palm" (Grove) a tale about loving things to death by Laura Lee Smith, set in the small town of Utina, Fla., between St. Augustine and Jacksonville; "The Ways of the Dead" (Viking), a story of race, crime, the law and the power of the media in Washington, D.C., by long-time Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker; and "In the Garden of Stone" (Hub City Press) by Susan Tekulve about the wave of Scilian immigrants who arrived in Bluefield, Va., in the 19th century.

Wilmington's Wiley Cash won the first annual prize in 2014 for his debut novel, "A Land More Kind That Home."

Modeled on the literary prizes of famous Parisian cafes, the Crook's Corner Book Prize is sponsored by the Crook's Corner Cafe and Bar in Chapel Hill. The shortlist will be announced in November, and the winner, who will receive $1,000 and a free glass of wine on each visit to Crooks Corner, will be announced in January.

The complete Crooks Corner list: http://crookscornerbookprize.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CROOKSBOOK_newsrelease_tuesday5th.pdf