ABSTRACT
Caruthers' second-published novel, The Cavaliers of Virginia, appeared some six months after The Kentuckian in New-York. The central figures of Caruthers' novel include two characters based on historical personages from seventeenth-century Virginia— Nathaniel Bacon, the leader of what Caruthers represents as a popular rebellion, and Bacon's adversary, Governor William Berkley. Contemporary reviewers gave The Cavaliers of Virginia more notice and more praise than either The Kentuckian in New-York or Knights of the Golden Horse-Shoe, Caruthers' third novel. Modern commentators, with the exception of Curtis Carroll Davis, have generally minimized their treatment of Cavaliers. The Cavaliers of Virginia, then, is a complex work that may have confounded readers. Like Swallow Barn, it makes an extended allusion to two contemporary issues: Jackson's presidency and relations with Native Americans. An addendum to Cavaliers indicated that another work, to be called Knights of the Horse-Shoe, would follow shortly.
