Promises both to enrich students' understandings of Byrd and to reinvigorate scholarly work on the Histories.-Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies Read[s] at times like a romp through rhetorical artifices used by writers from antiquity up to the times of Smollett, Fielding, and Addison.-Humanities This scholarly apparatus locates the literary sources for some of Byrd's anecdotes and language, traces minor ... Read morecharacters through the neglected local records of these borderlands, and contextualizes many of the broader concerns of early eighteenth century colonial elites. Because of Berland's comprehensive genealogy of Byrd's textual influences, other scholars can now make full use of the dividing line histories to imagine the intellectual and literary world of learned colonists.-William and Mary Quarterly Berland has clearly set the new scholarly standard for these classic texts.-Journal of American History An impressive, meticulously edited volume that reintroduces scholars to one of early America's most engaging authors.-Journal of Southern History An impressive, meticulously edited volume that reintroduces scholars to one of the early America's most engaging authors. . . . Highly recommended to all scholars of colonial America.-Journal of Southern History Berland has not only offered the finest and most detailed contextualization of Byrd's travels and their narratives, but he has also helped recover their author as a complicated man of letters.-Virginia Magazine Show Less