Virginians, The (1857-59).

a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. Thackeray made two visits to the United States, one in 1852-53, the other in 1855-56. The novel appeared in monthly installments over a period of two years. On one occasion he visited the home of the historian W.H. Prescott in Boston, where he saw two swords hung in a crossed position over the mantelpiece: one sword had belonged to Prescott's father's father, the other to his mother's father, and the two grandfathers had used the swords on opposite sides in the Revolution. It is said that this suggested to Thackeray the idea of a story about two brothers, one a loyalist and the other a rebel. He made the story into a sequel for Henry Esmond by placing the Esmond descendants on an estate in Virginia. Eyre Crowe wrote With Thackeray in America (1893), and James G. Wilson wrote Thackeray in the United States (1904).