MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, The. Few, if any, short stories written with a pur pose have achieved that purpose so completely as did "'The Man Without a Country' by Edward Everett Hale. Written during the Civil War, it did much to inculcate patriotism at a critical period in the fortunes of the Union_ The story centres about Philip Nolan, a lieu tenant in the army of the United States, who came under the influence of Aaron Burr, fore swore his country, and as a punishment was condemned never again to hear its name. To effect this, he is kept prisoner all through his long life, first on one ship, then an another. until at last he dies during the Civil Though the idea of life-long imprisonment cm shipboard is in itself novel and striking, and the naval setting is worked out with remarkable attention to detail, the chief interest of the story lies in the development of the character of the hero, who, from hating his country, groin through suffering to love her with passionate devotion. All this is told so convincingly, with such a mingling of fact and fancy and with such a wealth of contemporary allusions, that thousands of readers believed it to be an accoar of fact. The germ of the plot was suggested to
the author through the reading of Scott's 'Liic of Napoleon.' It occurred to him the.' it Napoleon had been passed from ship tc rP instead of being confined on Saint Wes England would have been spared much aa tumely and the French would not have tunes Saint Helena into a shrine. The °local color? which adds so much to the story, was gaiti from reading the records of the navy and the proceedings in the trial of Aaron Burr. Im mediately upon its publication in the Atlantic Monthly of December 1863,