(A name that leads me to believe the series has gone out of copyright.) This is a list of The Williamsburg series in order: The books also have been out of print for quite some time, but I see that they are being reissued by Buccaneer books. William Beebe) wrote most of the books in the forties, there is unquestionable passion, but no sex. Because Thane (who was the wife of oceanographic explorer Dr. At the core of the book is the deeply engaging story of a Southern belle and a Northern journalist, but Thane has intertwined their lives with a forbidden love between cousins, the enduring bonds between husband and wife, and a wondrous sense of history.Īll the books in the series are like this, centered on one main couple, but with wonderful, romantic side stories.

From the firing on Fort Sumter to the surrender at Appomatox, we follow Eden, Cabot, and members of the family through both the bitter-sweet moments and the horrors of war. Before he leaves to cover the story of the coming war for his father’s newspaper, Cabot declares his love, and Eden agrees to wait for him.Īfter that, Cabot is irrevocably tied to the fates of the Days and the Spragues of Williamsburg. Tibby resolves that Eden will have Cabot if she wants him. Tibby and Eden are both drawn to the raw loneliness in him, well-disguised by charm and fine manners. Yet at the insistence of Tibby Day, the matriarch of the Day family who gets wind of the encounter, Cabot Murray is invited to Tibby’s birthday party.Ĭabot is charmed and deeply touched as he meets the rest of this loving extended family, so different from his own. Their country is about to split apart, and they will be on opposite sides. Hers is one of the first families of Virginia, and he is a Yankee newspaperman. The obstacles to their future are instantly obvious. As they shelter together from a passing thunderstorm, they fall in love.

On the eve of the Civil War, Eden Day encounters Cabot Murray on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg. One day after having read my stories for most of a semester, she took me aside and said, “Dear, I think this is an author you would really enjoy.” I took her suggestion and chose as my first Thane the book Yankee Stranger because I had just seen Gone With the Wind and was positively obsessed with the Civil War. My sophomore English teacher recommended Elswyth Thane’s books to me. They are a kinder, gentler, and infinitely more romantic series of books that preceded the wildly popular John Jakes’s Kent Family Chronicles by about thirty years. The books follow family members through almost every significant event between the Revolutionary War and World War II. You don’t so much read The Williamsburg series aka “The Women of Williamsburg” as become a member of the family – the extended Day-Sprague-Campion family. The Book that Inspired Me to be a Writer*

Yankee stranger by elswyth thane