Tag Archives: Lost Voices

Unmasking The Humourist: From Lost Essays to Top New Release

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“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

—Victor Hugo (1802–1885). French novelist, poet, and statesman (adapted from his Histoire d’un crime, 1877.)

Victor Hugo’s insight feels especially fitting today. After nearly three centuries in obscurity, Alexander Gordon’s essays have finally found their moment—and their audience.

My book, Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina, has just been named a Top New Release in U.S. Literary Criticism on Amazon.

From colonial Charleston to Amazon’s Top New Release banner —
Alexander Gordon finally takes his bow.

That bright orange banner may be a digital flourish, but for me, it symbolizes something much deeper: the recovery of a voice that nearly slipped into oblivion.

A Journey Nearly Three Centuries in the Making

Alexander Gordon’s satirical essays, published pseudonymously in colonial Charleston in 1753-54, were witty, sharp, and—until now—lost to time. For nearly three centuries, they lay hidden in crumbling newspapers, unnoticed by scholars, unread by modern audiences.

When I started my work on the Humourist essays, I could not have imagined how far the search would take me—through archives, biographies, and dusty trails. It became a mystery worth solving, a conversation across centuries.

Why It Matters

Bringing Gordon back into the light isn’t just about literary recovery—it’s about restoring a missing piece of cultural history and literary history—America’s and Charleston’s. His voice adds texture to our understanding of early America: its humor, its politics, its people.

Seeing readers discover him today—on a platform as modern and massive as Amazon—is a reminder that scholarship doesn’t live only in libraries. It can leap across time and space, reshaping how we see the past and present alike.

A Note of Gratitude

This milestone belongs not just to me, but to everyone who has encouraged me, asked the hard questions, and believed in the value of preserving what was almost lost.

Here’s to Alexander Gordon, finally taking his bow on the 21st-century stage. And here’s to the readers who will now join him there.

If you know someone who loves history, literature, or Charleston’s rich past, I invite you to share this book with them. The Humourist has waited nearly three hundred years for his audience—perhaps now is the moment he finds it.

Now available for readers everywhere:

Unmasking The Humourist:
Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina

Unmasking The Humourist. From Colonial Shadows into Modern Light

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“The pursuit of historical truth requires rigorous attention to evidence, but also imagination—an ability to see beyond the silences.”

—Eric Foner (b. 1943), Columbia University historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Fiery Trial.

It began with a clue. A slip of language. A name tucked too neatly into silence.

For years, The Humourist was one of colonial America’s most compelling mysteries: a sharp, satirical voice that burst onto the front page of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753 and 1754—then disappeared without a trace.

No signature. No farewell. Just a trail of dazzling essays and a question no one could quite answer: Who was he?

What followed, for me, was part scholarship, part sleuthing. I tracked language patterns, pored over wills, newspapers, shipping records, and marginalia. I followed leads from Charleston to Edinburgh and back again. And finally, I solved the puzzle, and the answer emerged:

Alexander Gordon—a Scottish-born antiquarian and early Egyptologist, who would eventually serve as Clerk of His Majesty’s Council in South Carolina. A man educated in Enlightenment thought, fluent in satire, and bold enough to take aim at power in a bustling port city where reputation was currency.

The mystery is solved. But Unmasking The Humourist doesn’t just name the man—it restores his voice.

This authoritative and definitive edition brings Gordon’s essays back into circulation for the first time in nearly 270 years, fully annotated and critically framed, with a scholarly introduction that explores Gordon’s identity, influences, and the forces that led to his disappearance from literary memory.

Why These Essays Matter

The Humourist columns are more than colonial curiosities. They are early American satire at its finest—witty, incisive, and rich with transatlantic influence. Gordon’s essays place Charleston on the literary map, not as a provincial outpost, but as a vibrant participant in the Enlightenment-era conversation about politics, identity, and the press.

This book marks a breakthrough in how we understand the American essay tradition. It challenges the idea that colonial literature was all sermons and pamphlets. Here, we meet a writer who was sharp, worldly, and unafraid to poke fun at hypocrisy—whose pen was as powerful as any pulpit or platform of his day.

A Milestone Moment

Today, I submitted the final corrections to the publisher, along with keywords, pricing, and metadata. The next step is the printed proof—then, in due time, the book itself.

It’s a strange and beautiful feeling. Emily Dickinson said it best:

“After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”

This project has spanned decades. It has taken me deep into archival records, across centuries of silence, and finally into the steady light of historical clarity.

And Now?

I’m proud to share the cover—front and back. Because The Humourist, like all great stories, deserves both.

Launch Details?

Not quite yet. But soon. The typeset is locked. The voice is ready.

This fall, a long-lost satirist steps out of the colonial shadows—and into the modern light.