Two Texts by Edward Everett Hale: 'The Man without a Country' and 'Philip Nolan's Friends'

Two Texts by Edward Everett Hale brings together one of the most popular stories of the nineteenth-century, "The Man Without a Country," with its novel-length sequel, Philip Nolan's Friends. Written in 1863 in response to Clement Vallandigham's speeches against Abraham Lincoln's suspensions of civil liberties, "The Man without a Country" recounts the life of a rash naval officer sentenced to spend his life on naval ships where he might never again see or hear of the United States. Thirteen years later, in Philip Nolan's Friends Hale would employ the travel narrative again with his fictional Cuban American heroine, Inez Perry, to retell the "true" story of that rash officer, the early filibuster Philip Nolan. Culminating in the transfer of the Louisiana territory to the United States, the novel draws parallels between her coming-of-age adventures and the implied manifest destiny of the country Nolan hoped to extend.

As Hsuan Hsu and Susan Kalter show in this critical edition, these engaging works of fiction helped orient nineteenth-century Americans' opinions about citizenship, statelessness, imperialism, and conflicts with Mexico and Native American nations in the U.S. Southwest. Reprinted now for the modern audience, these stories exemplify how literature comes to terms with the internal and foreign conflicts that accompanied the consolidation of the nation.