The Diary and Life of William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674-1744

Book excerpt: This eloquent and provocative essay describes the emergence of a Virginia gentleman. Sent to England for an education, William Byrd II soon learned to emulate the ideals of English gentility. In 1704 the thirty-year-old Byrd inherited his father's estates in Virginia, but he lived in England for much of the next twenty-five years pursuing his political ambitions. Thwarted in his efforts to obtain either the position to which he aspired or a wealthy bride, Byrd finally faced personal and financial ruin. Only then did he come to be both literally and figuratively at home in Virginia. The story is told through Kenneth Lockridge's compelling reading of a seemingly intractable source: Byrd's secret diaries. Drawing upon psychohistory, social psychology, cultural anthropology, and literary criticism, Lockridge relates the narrative of a single life, of a person struggling for realization within the context of a Virginia aristocracy itself striving for a mature conception of its role. He captures the essence of what it was to become a Virginia gentleman, and the terrible price leading Virginians paid for the eventual success of their class. In the process, Lockridge demonstrates how a close reading of literary texts can reveal large historical themes. He explores the politics of the eighteenth-century colonial and imperial world and reveals the exact moment at which a matured colonial gentry seized the initiative from its British masters -- fifty years before the Revolution.