Put Kolchin's American Slavery, 1619-1877 to bed last night. For a first book about slavery, it's really good. For getting a sense of the historiography in the early 90s, it's ok. Overall it compares unfavorably to Davis' Inhuman Bondage despite the latter covering the whole western hemisphere and a wider span of time. Kolchin says upfront that he's writing a short, quick book and it really shows. Much of it reads like something you'd have as an optional book in the US survey. I guess he was going for that, but it was a bit of a let down all the same.

Today I start Genovese's The Political Economy of Slavery. Should be done with him around the fifth, at which point I'll start Roll, Jordan, Roll. I've already got it parted out into virtual chapters. Should take me 12 days, but I lowballed 'em a bit so it might take less.

It's Canada Day, and I like to remember one odd episode in the history of Weird Tales:

During this period, there were also a variety of reprints overseas. The most interesting were in Canada. The first series (from June 1935 to July 1936) were simply abridged versions of the equivalent US editions. The second series (May 1942 to November 1951), however, both had all new artwork and had frequent reorganizations of stories, included some that appeared in Canadian issues earlier than the equivalent US printings, and others that were reprinted from Short Stories and did not appear in the US edition at all. This variation lasted until the January 1948 issue and thereafter the issues were identical to the US equivalents.

Source

I don't want to mess with my conference paper I'm presenting next Tuesday any more than I have to, so I'm thinking about picking up the Middle English Breton Lais for the train ride up there. In other news, in case you were wondering what late-medieval French scribes were paid:

From their evaluation of wages Bozzolo and Ornato calculate that the average scribal wage in France might range from 7s 4d to 9s 4d per quire during the years 1396–1478. They conclude that a scribe might receive between 8.42d and 12.63d per folio; in calculating the low and high wages paid for quaternion and senion quires respectively, they determine an average wage of 10.53d per folio. In contrast the Breton data, though fragmentary, suggests that Breton cathedral chapters paid wages ranging from 12s 6d to 20s 8d per quire or an average of 2s per folio.

Are there any other good authors (with well-sourced footnotes) on the American Civil War other than McPherson (his 'Battle Cry of Freedom' is excellent), Foote (lacks footnotes and sources) and Catton's materials?