In Hales' 1897 edition of "The Man Without a Country" he includes a fascinating introduction in which he explains the details of his original ideas for writing the bestseller and the story of its initial publication in The Atlantic. It is this introduction along with the story itself that has been republished here for the interested reader.
In beginning his introduction Hale writes:
"The publisher of this edition of THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY asks me to give some account of the circumstances and incidents of its Publication. I do this with a certain reluctance, lest it should seem that I think they are more important than they are. It is true, however, that a series of curious coincidences accompanied the history of the story. Persons who are interested in the Curiosities of Literature, then, may read this preface."
Included in his introduction are references to the "real Philip Nolan" a Texas freebooter and Aaron Burr's Mississippi River intrigues and treason trial. The real Philip Nolan (1771-1801) was a horse-trader and freebooter in Natchez, on the Mississippi River, and the Spanish province of Tejas (aka Texas) who had contact with Zebulon Pike on his famous expedition into Spanish Territory.
"The Man Without a Country" is a short story by American writer Edward Everett Hale, first published in The Atlantic in December 1863. It is the story of American Army lieutenant Philip Nolan, who renounces his country during a trial for treason and is consequently sentenced to spend the rest of his days at sea without so much as a word of news about the United States. Though the story is set in the early 19th century, it is an allegory about the upheaval of the American Civil War and was meant to promote the Union cause.
Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was an American author, historian, and Unitarian minister. Hale first came to notice as a writer in 1859, when he contributed the short story "My Double and How He Undid Me" to the Atlantic Monthly. He soon published other stories in the same periodical. His best known work was "The Man Without a Country", published in the Atlantic in 1863 and intended to strengthen support for the Union cause in the North. As in some of his other non-romantic tales, he employed a minute realism which led his readers to suppose the narrative a record of fact. These two stories and such others as "The Rag-Man and the Rag-Woman" and "The Skeleton in the Closet", gave him a prominent position among short-story writers of 19th century America. His short story "The Brick Moon", serialized in the Atlantic Monthly, is the first known fictional description of an artificial satellite. It was possibly an influence on the novel The Begum's Fortune by Jules Verne. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1865.
Other works by Hale include:
Illustrious Americans (1896) The Life of Christopher Columbus (1891) Boy's heroes (1885).
