Local Poets: William John Grayson

William John Grayson

Born: November 12, 1788, Beaufort, SC
Congressman: March 4, 1833 - March 3, 1837
Died: October 4, 1863, Newberry, SC

According to Literary South Carolina by Edwin Epps (2004), Grayson is best remembered for his pro-slavery verse, The Hireling and the Slave (1854), "where the plight of the Northern factory worker is portrayed as worse than that of the Southern slave…. Most Southerners saw Grayson’s poem as reasonably argued, mostly accurate and persuasive; Northerners … mostly ignored the poem intended as a rebuttal" to Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  

Google Books has posted The Hireling and the Slave online for anyone to read it.  You can also get to the narrative poem via the "Literature Resources from Gale" database within DISCUS. 

A quick search in the DISCUS database choosing "Literature" resources and then searching on "Hireling and the Slave" secures 4 hits of literary criticism about the poem:

1) Calhoun, Richard J. "William John Grayson." American Literary Critics and Scholars, 1850-1880. Ed. John Wilbert Rathbun and Monica M. Grecu. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 64. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.

2) Wilkinson, C. P. Seabrook. "William John Grayson." Antebellum Writers in the South: Second Series. Ed. Kent P. Ljungquist. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 248. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.

3) Wimsatt, Mary Ann. "Witness to Sorrow: The Antebellum Autobiography of William J. Grayson." The Mississippi Quarterly 46.2 (1993): 317+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.

4)"William John Grayson." Antebellum Writers in New York and the South. Ed. Joel Myerson. Detroit: Gale Research, 1979. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 3. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.

Try using DISCUS from your home or office to further your discovery of our local poet, William John Grayson or a poet of your choice in honor of National Poetry Month. You just might be surprised by the depth and breadth of the resources that the State Library provides for its residents!