Cabins in the Laurel

In 1928 New York native Muriel Earley Sheppard moved with her mining engineer husband to the Toe River Valley -- an isolated pocket in North Carolina between the Blue Ridge and Iron Mountains. Sheppard began visiting her neighbors and forming friendships in remote coves and rocky clearings, and in 1935 her account of life in the mountains -- Cabins in the Laurel -- was published. The book included 128 striking photographs by the well-known Chapel Hill photographer, Bayard Wootten, a frequent visitor to the area.

The early reviews of Cabins in the Laurel were overwhelmingly positive, but the mountain people -- Sheppard's friends and subjects -- initially felt that she had portrayed them as too old-fashioned, even backward. As novelist John Ehle shows in his foreword, though, fifty years have made a huge difference, and the people of the Toe River Valley have been among its most affectionate readers.

This new large-format edition, which makes use of many of Wootten's original negatives, will introduce Sheppard's words and Wootten's photography to a whole new generation of readers -- in the Valley and beyond.

Author: Muriel Earley Sheppard
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 09/01/1991
Pages: 302
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.61lbs
Size: 10.01h x 7.04w x 0.84d
ISBN: 9780807843284

About the Author
Sheppard, Muriel Earley: - Muriel Earley Sheppard (1898-1951) was born in Andover, New York. She is also the author of Cloud by Day: A Story of Coal and Coke and People