An Edition of Great Day: The Autobiography of Emma Speed Sampson

John Letcher Fugate

Abstract

The same year that “Great Day” was rejected by the New York publisher, Mrs. Sampson died. The family then laid the manuscript aside, waiting for some writer or graduate student to revive interest in Mrs. Sampson. Then in the spring of 1968, Dr. Welford Taylor, an English professor at the University of Richmond, introduced to me to Mrs. Sampson by suggesting that I do a short paper about the comic devices found in the “Miss Minerva” series. This thoughtful suggestion triggered a series of events that eventually led to this edition.