Foxfire 11

The Foxfire Series #11

by Eliot Wigginton (Series Editor), Kaye Carver Collins (Editor), Lacy Hunter (Editor)

With this newest volume in the Foxfire series comes a wealth of the kind of folk wisdom and values of simple living that have made these volumes beloved bestsellers for the last three decades, with more than two million copies in print.
In 1966, in the Appalachian Mountains of Northeast Georgia, Eliot Wigginton and his students founded a quarterly magazine that they named Foxfire, after a phosphorescent lichen. In 1972, several articles from the magazine were published in book form, and the acclaimed Foxfire series was born. Almost thirty years later, in this age of technology and cyber-living, the books teach a philosophy of simplicity in living that is truly enduring in its appeal. This new volume--Foxfire 11--celebrates the rituals and recipes of the Appalachian homeplace, including a one-hundred page section on herbal remedies, and segments about planting and growing a garden, preserving and pickling, smoking and salting, honey making, beekeeping, and fishing, as well as hundreds of the kind of spritied firsthand narrative accounts from Appalachian community members that exemplify the Foxfire style. Much more than "how-to" books, the Foxfire series is a publishing phenomenon and a way of life, teaching creative self-sufficiency, the art of natural remedies, home crafts, and other country folkways, fascinating to everyone interested in rediscovering the virtues of simple life. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Reference, Crafts

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

Eliot Wigginton (born Brooks Eliot Wigginton) is an American oral historian, folklorist, writer and former educator. He was most widely known for developing the Foxfire Project, a writing project that led to a magazine and the series of best-selling Foxfire books, twelve volumes in all. These were based on articles by high school students from Rabun County, Georgia. In 1986 he was named "Georgia Teacher of the Year" and in 1989 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Wigginton was born in West Virginia on November 9, 1942. His mother, Lucy Freelove Smith Wiggington, died eleven days later of "pneunomia due to acute pulmary edema," according to her death certificate. His maternal grandmother, Margaret Pollard Smith, was an associate professor of English at Vassar College and his father was a famous landscape architect, also named Brooks Eliot Wiggington. His family called him Eliot. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English from Cornell University and a second Master's from Johns Hopkins University. In 1966, he began teaching English in the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, located in the Appalachian Mountains of northeastern Georgia.
Wigginton began a writing project based on his students' collecting oral histories from local residents and writing them up. They published the histories and articles in a small magazine format beginning in 1967. Topics included all manner of folklife practices and customs associated with farming and the rural life of southern Appalachia, as well as the folklore and oral history of local residents. The magazine began to reach a national audience and became quite popular.
The first anthology of collected Foxfire articles was published in book form in 1972, and achieved best-seller status. Over the years, the schools published eleven other volumes. (The project transferred to the local public school in 1977.)
In addition, special collections were published, including The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery, Foxfire: 25 Years, A Foxfire Christmas, and The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Toys and Games. Several collections of recorded music from the local area were released.

Reviews

[Latasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

some great info on plants and bee keeping. I did not read the whole book, just those 2 sections.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this series. Although my parents hail from the South, they were not from Appalachia. Even so, the stories the old ones told of growing up were similar to those my parents and grandparents told. Their stories told in this series are a true testament to the grit of those who worked the land of this country. Their strength and struggles created a can-do America that persists today.

[Cheryl]

Got two recipes out of it, for scalloped apples and sweet potato pie. This series just doesn't mean as much to me now that my grandma has passed and I no longer see my dad often.

[Lulu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one I forgot about. A ton of useful & interesting info.

[Skylar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t say enough about the Foxfire books. I love them so much.

[Xysea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the series, this is one that is rather valuable in terms of usable knowledge. Occasionally, these books ramble about nothing in particular, but after reading #11, I can bake scratch biscuits, syrup bread, make applesauce and plant a garden at the right time of year.

That's pretty good, I think.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Great Series on how on people use to do thing when they were mostly self sufficient, and not store dependent different volumes cover everything from snake handling. to log cabin building to planting by the seasons, a must for DIY'ers and survivalists. Check out amazon.com for individual contents.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rehash of information presented in the previous volumes. An oral history of early 1900s Appilachia in northern Georgia. Covers farming, cooking, and plants among other topics.