Tales of Whitetails: Archibald Rutledge's Great Deer-Hunting Stories - Softcover

Archibald Rutledge

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1643365959 ISBN 13: 9781643365954

Publisher: The University of South Carolina Press, 2025

Synopsis

Immersive stories of thrilling pursuit of the wisest game animal

No American outdoor writer has more convincingly captured the myriad, and often elusive, meanings of the hunt than Archibald Rutledge. The renowned outdoor writer and poet laureate, who grew up at Hampton Plantation in South Carolina, had a mystical attachment to deer. His stories immortalize the world of the hunter and the hunted.

Editor Jim Casada brings together thirty-five of Rutledge's finest deer stories in this stirring collection. With an unrivaled knack for capturing the thrill of the chase, Rutledge immerses the reader in the deep swamps, pine ridges, and palmetto thickets of the southern landscape. Tales of Whitetails is the only book ever published devoted exclusively to Rutledge's deer tales.

About this title

About the Author

Archibald Rutledge (1883–1973) was South Carolina's most prolific writer and the state's first poet laureate. His nature writings garnered him the prestigious John Burroughs Medal.

Jim Casada has written or edited more than forty books and authored some five thousand magazine articles on the outdoors. He has been honored with 250 regional and national writing awards.

From the Back Cover

Archibald Rutledge - renowned outdoor writer, poetlaureate, and authority on whitetails - is again returned to print in this stirring collection of thirty-five of his finest deer stories. Rutledge, who lived a rich life at Hampton Plantation in South Carolina, had a mystical attachment to deer that found fulfillment in hunting and writing. No American sporting writer has been more persuasive in capturing the myriad, and often elusive, meanings of the hunt. According to editor Casada, Rutledge has an unrivaled knack for capturing the thrill of the chase, and his ability to set a scene is such that it places the reader squarely amidst the deep swamps, ridges of mixed pines and hardwoods, and dense thickets of palmetto and greenbrier. Rutledge considered deer, "that noble, elusive, crafty, wonderful denizen of the wilds", to be the wisest of game animals. His firm belief was that there was "much more to hunting than hunting". He praised whitetails in poetry, found in them a basis for a sophisticated philosophy, and, most of all, immortalized the world of the hunter and the hunted in prose. Tales of Whitetails is the only book ever published devoted exclusively to Rutledge's deer tales.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1643365959
• ISBN 13: 9781643365954
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 294
• Editor: Jim Casada