Tales of Edisto

Book excerpt: Nell S. Graydon’s first book, Tales of Edisto, was first published in 1955—14 years after the author’s love affair with her second home at Edisto Island began. Her daughter Virginia recalled that a stay there always included daily trips to the post office, especially during the war years when sharing news was of utmost importance. It was there that the summer colony met and mingled with the natives, and it was in the mundane setting of the post office that the tales of Edisto first reached Nell Graydon’s ears. She wrote many years later: ‘The stories are not new they have been told many times. The tales fascinated me, and I often wondered why someone had not compiled them in book form....’ The historical context of Tales of Edisto includes elements of glamour that will appeal to almost any reader; certainly the 19th century sea island cotton plantations with their ‘elegant homes, avenues of magnolias, orange blossoms, beautiful women, and gentleman planters with their mint juleps’ were the stuff of which romance is made. Beautifully illustrated throughout by engineer-photographer Carl Julien of Greenwood, South Carolina.