The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays’ Rebellion

Edward Bellamy, later famous as the author of Looking Backward, produced in The Duke of Stockbridge (1879) a novel which “gives a more accurate account,” Samuel Eliot Morison said, “of Shays’ Rebellion than any of the formal histories.” Bellamy’s themes of social revolt accompany an affirmation of the American ideals of egalitarianism and the pursuit of happiness. Hitherto, the novel has been available only in a heavily edited version; the present edition, based on the original as it was printed in the Berkshire Courier, offers the first authentic text since its publication.