Happy Birthday, Manly

Today in Kamundongo, Angola, in 1903, Manly Wade Wellman was born (his father was a medical officer). My first book of his was one of his Civil War YA novels (Ghost Battalion), but I quickly fell in love with the John the Balladeer stories. Exquisite writing, and about my homeland - how could I not?

Karl Edward Wagner says, "There hadn't been anything like the John stories at that time, and there hasn't been since. No one but Manly Wade Wellman could have written these stories. Here his vivid imagination merged with authentic Southern folklore and a heartfelt love of the South and its people. Just as J. R. R. Tolkien brilliantly created a modern British myth cycle, so did Manly Wade Wellman give to us an imaginary world of purely American fact, fantasy, and song."

If you don't know John and his stories, try one - I don't think you'll be disappointed.