Highlands and Good Finds

Written By: Stuart Ferguson | Issue: April 2025 | Photograph By: Susan Renfro

“And now the watery April sun lit up …and the birds; Rejoicing in their flood of unknown words; Were heard again, a silk-fastened book; A certain elder from his raiment took’ And said “O friends…be pleased to hear an ancient tale again; That, told so long ago, doth yet remain.’”

Remind you of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”? It’s from “The Earthly Paradise,” William Morris’s 1870, four-volume poem modeled on Chaucer’s work, but alternating Greek and Roman myths with Norse and Germanic romances. Morris was an energetic English designer, artist and social reformer who said “if a chap can’t compose an epic poem while he’s weaving tapestry he had better shut up.”

In 1894, Morris’s Kelmscott Press published a landmark edition of Chaucer.

I found my 1905 edition of “The Earthly Paradise” at the Hudson Library’s awesome Bookworm; it has the signature of Louise Rand Bascom (1885-1949) on the first page, with the date 6/25/07.

She’s the teenage girl with cascading ringlets seen in old Highlands photos, on the tennis court of the Davis House at the turn of the 20th century, or standing next to her friend Helen Hill Norris (future author of “Historic Tales of Highlands”). Louise’s father Henry Bascom owned most of the real estate in town—including the Davis House – and served several terms as mayor. She and her father are the namesakes of the Bascom art gallery, which her widowed husband, the artist and theater-designer Watson Barratt, endowed in honor of his late wife and father in law.

Rereading Ran Shaffner’s fun “Good Reading Material, Mostly Bound and New: The Hudson Library 1884-1984” gave me info on Louise who was a library trustee as well as a patron. A drama major at Wellesley College, Louise moved to New York and wrote short stories for magazines such as Harper’s and Ladies Home Journal, as well as travel pieces about NYC. In fact, her future husband (they married in 1917) illustrated some of her magazine work.

In her biography of Morris, Fiona MacCarthy calls “Earthly Paradise” a “cult book, mainstay of mid-Victorian picnics.” It’s great fun, but I can’t find that any public library in North Carolina has a copy.

The Hudson Library does have a copy of “Good Reading Material” that can be checked out. They also have the paperback for sale for $15. If you’re interested in Highlands and books, you should own it!

Stuart Ferguson is a local historian, armchair traveler, and irrepressible raconteur. He reviews books for The Highland Hiker, which maintains an extensive collection of local literature.