Books, Arts & Manners: Conglomerate Soil

The Knave of Boston, by Francis Russell (Quinlan, 195 pp., $17.95)

Francis Russell is not an easy writer to categorize. He appears as a historian in his best known books, Tragedy in Dedham and The Shadow of Blooming Grove. When he writes about New England his prose takes root in its conglomerate soil to continue a strain of idiosyncratic reflection evolved from Thoreau and Emerson. There is a whiff of the vanished Boston Tory in his paragraphs, but there is also a subtle sympathy for the anarchist, the immigrant, the outsider struggling against the establishment or against convention.

MM

About the Author

Mark Mirsky

Featured Tags

The Knave of Boston, by Francis Russell (Quinlan, 195 pp., $17.95)

Francis Russell is not an easy writer to categorize. He appears as a historian in his best known books, Tragedy in Dedham and The Shadow of Blooming Grove. When he writes about New England his prose takes root in its conglomerate soil to continue a strain of idiosyncratic reflection evolved from Thoreau and Emerson. There is a whiff of the vanished Boston Tory in his paragraphs, but there is also a subtle sympathy for the anarchist, the immigrant, the outsider struggling against the establishment or against convention.