Virginia literature

Prior to English settlement and the formation of Jamestown on the east Virginian coast in 1607, the region was home to the native Algonquian peoples, also known as the Powhatan peoples of Tsenacommacah. Literature made by the early Powhatan peoples was multi-textual, not based on the English written word and took many artistic and cultural forms.{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Eric Gary |title=Literary and Textual Histories of the Native South |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-last=Hobson |editor-first=Fred |page=1 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199767472.013.1 |editor-last2=Ladd |editor-first2=Barbara}} Indigenous literature of early Virginia consisted of oral stories and tales, markings made on rock and the land itself, physical memorials that were used as a way of storytelling, and, other kinds of texts including "earthworks (architectonic forms of public rhetoric that embody and express civic and sacred power) and other smaller expressive forms such as effigies, pipes, and pottery".{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Eric Gary |url=http://oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199767472.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199767472-e-1 |title=Literary and Textual Histories of the Native South |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-last=Hobson |editor-first=Fred |page=2 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199767472.013.1 |isbn=978-0-19-976747-2 |editor-last2=Ladd |editor-first2=Barbara}}

There is some evidence to suggest that the Algonquin people used a form of hieroglyphic writing in order to communicate and record information.{{Cite book |last=Rasmussen |first=Birgit Brander |title=Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780822393832 |page=19}} Written observations made by European settlers recorded that indigenous people were writing these hieroglyphic inscriptions on birch bark and in screen-fold books on a number of matters including public life, private affairs, culture, social systems and spiritual beliefs.{{Cite book |last=Rasmussen |first=Birgit Brander |title=Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780822393832 |page=19}} This is known as a form of indigenous literacy{{Cite book |last=Parker |first=Robert Dale |title=The Invention of Native American Literature |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2002 |isbn=9781501724664}} or literature that employs a non-alphabetic writing system and makes use of signs and symbols in order to communicate.

Literature produced during the early period was predominantly written in the style of prose and focused almost exclusively on topics of exploration and settlement.{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=Howard Mumford |date=1946 |title=The Literature of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century |jstor=25058511 |journal=Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |volume=19 |issue=2 |page=8|doi=10.2307/25058511 |bibcode=1946MAAAS..19....1J |hdl=2027/uva.x001249441 |hdl-access=free }} Texts mostly consisted of diaries, letters, logs, political writings, promotion literature, prose, travel notes/practical manuals, religious sermons and poetry. Early writings were predominantly observational logs made by the first colonisers in service of the crown describing the landscape, indigenous peoples and conditions of settlement.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |oclc=903688822}} Explorer and colony governor (from 1606 – 1609) George Percy, wrote the Observations, a highly detailed eye-witness account of the incidents of the first voyage to Virginia and the party's many expeditions onto land, however it was not published until 1625.File:A-true-relation-excerpt.wav

John Smith, explorer and captain of the newly established Virginian colony wrote frequently and in 1608 Smith's first book A True Relation of Virginia also known under the title A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence was published at Stationers Hall in London.{{Cite book |last=Gardiner |first=Tyler Lyon |title=Narratives of early Virginia, 1606-1625. |publisher=Barnes & Noble |year=1966 |location=New York |pages=27}} Attributed as a natural-born writer,{{Cite book |last=Goodheart |first=Adam |title=A New Literary History of America |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780674054219 |editor-last=Marcus |editor-first=Greil |pages=22 |chapter=1607 Fear and love in the Virginia colony}} Smith's account of Jamestown was a straightforward, matter-of-fact record of his journey to, settlement of, and what he witnessed and experienced within, the colony. The text itself was forthright, vivid and used direct and strong natural prose. It followed a tradition of British geographical style writing prominent at the time that documented, categorised and expounded the nature of adventure and colonisation. It describes in detail the Indigenous Powhatan peoples Smith encountered and presented Virginia as a 'Wonder of Nature' and as a 'Mirror of our Clime' in which he reflects "a vision of a heroic imperial England".{{Cite journal |last=Street |first=Susan Castillo |date=2016 |title=Forging a Transatlantic Persona: Panegyric Verse and John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Isles |jstor=10.5699/yearenglstud.46.2016.0075 |journal=The Yearbook of English Studies |volume=46 |pages=79 |doi=10.5699/yearenglstud.46.2016.0075 |s2cid=163996515 |issn=0306-2473}} As it was the first published English-language literary text of the region it helped to establish Smith's reputation as an authority on Virginia.{{Cite journal |last=Street |first=Susan Castillo |date=2016 |title=Forging a Transatlantic Persona: Panegyric Verse and John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Isles |jstor=10.5699/yearenglstud.46.2016.0075 |journal=The Yearbook of English Studies |volume=46 |pages=76 |doi=10.5699/yearenglstud.46.2016.0075 |s2cid=163996515 |issn=0306-2473}} It is cited by historians as the first piece of literature produced within and about Virginia, marking the beginning of Virginian (and also American) literary history.{{sfn|Hayes|2015|p=17}}

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John Smith later published The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles in 1624 which was divided into six sections spread across two volumes of work. The work further described British colonial efforts in Virginia, documenting the topography & geography of the region, recording observations of the spiritual practices, systems of law, and family life of the indigenous peoples, and categorising the native flora & fauna of the land. Smith also included a short and limited dictionary of the Algonquian language.{{Cite book |last=Goodheart |first=Adam |title=A New Literary History of America |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780674054219 |editor-last=Greil |editor-first=Marcus |pages=24 |chapter=1607 Fear and love in the Virginia colony |editor-last2=Sollors |editor-first2=Werner}} Literary scholars note that Smith's themes and the writing itself influenced later Virginian literary texts and styles, as well as other Southern writers "from Twain and Melville to Barth and Pynchon".{{Cite book |last=Goodheart |first=Adam |title=A New Literary History of America |year=2012 |isbn=9780674054219 |editor-last=Marcus |editor-first=Greil |pages=25 |chapter=1607 Fear and love in the Virginia colony |editor-last2=Sollors |editor-first2=Werner}}

Throughout the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia's leaders often sought to emulate a style of poetry established during the period of the English Renaissance, a tradition of writing which was primarily concerned with topics of civic and social life.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=54 |oclc=903688822}} This style was widely used by their English compatriots back home.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=54 |oclc=903688822}} These literary traditions would stretch into the 18th Century with common types of verse included the elegy, the narrative poem, and the historical poem.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=56 |oclc=903688822}} William Strachey the colonial secretary of the Virginia Colony wrote several works including The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia which included the opening poem Aecclesiae et Reipub (Church and State) in which he "emphasises the inextricable link between planting a colony and planting the Christian faith, indicating that the English colonists had a religious responsibility to convert the Virginia Indians.”{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=54 |oclc=903688822}}

A printing press began operating in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1682.{{Citation |publisher = Southworth-Anthoensen Press |location = Portland, Maine |title = The Colonial Printer |chapter-url = https://archive.org/stream/colonialprinter00wrot#page/15/mode/1up |via=Internet Archive |author = Lawrence C. Wroth |date = 1938 |chapter=Diffusion of Printing }} (Fulltext) Colonial- and Federal-era writers included Robert Beverley, Jr. (History and Present State of Virginia, 1705); Arthur Blackamore (Religious Triumvirate, 1720); Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785).{{cite book |editor1= Charles Reagan Wilson |editor2= William Ferris |title= Encyclopedia of Southern Culture |isbn= 0807818232 |publisher= University of North Carolina Press |year= 1989 |via= Documenting the American South |chapter-url= http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/intro.html |chapter= Beginnings of Southern Literature |url= https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofso00dia_teb }}

Later during the eighteenth century, letters became one of the most popular forms of literary text, the period being dubbed the golden age of letter writing due to "expanding social mobility, higher literacy rates, less expensive stationery supplies, and faster postal delivery".{{Citation |last=Hewitt |first=Elizabeth |title=Letter Writing in Eighteenth-Century Virginia |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/letter-writing-in-eighteenthcentury-virginia/71B4EAA49AEA8079891F8E5991639BCE |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=96–108 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.008 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} It is noted that the earliest descriptions of Virginia (its terrain, layout and original indigenous inhabitants) were recorded and proliferated in the literary form of the letter.{{Citation |last=Hewitt |first=Elizabeth |title=Letter Writing in Eighteenth-Century Virginia |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/letter-writing-in-eighteenthcentury-virginia/71B4EAA49AEA8079891F8E5991639BCE |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=96–108 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.008 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia by Thomas Harriot is one such example of descriptive letters published to English audiences describing the newly colonised Virginia.

Virginian Literature of the 19th Century covers literature produced from 1800 to the turn of the century in 1899. This period of writing was marked by the Antebellum (meaning 'before the war') period between 1812 – 1861 and the American civil war from 1861 – 1865.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |oclc=903688822}} The early years of the nineteenth century saw several important literary texts published including The History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri thence across the Rocky mountains and down the river Columbia to the Pacific Ocean (1814) which recorded the expedition of Lewis and Clark (two Virginian-born explorers) and A Tour through Part of Virginia in the Summer of 1808 (1809) by John Edwards Caldwell. These texts centered on the themes of travel, history, and biography.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=152 |oclc=903688822}}

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The early Antebellum period of Virginia's literary history was marked by genres of "elegies, poems, metrical romances, narrative, satire, sentimental humour, and vers de société."{{Citation |last=Brickey |first=Russell |title=Romantic Verse |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/romantic-verse/3D060006664BF5511D434130DD938585 |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=171 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.013 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} Poetry on the topic of nature and the natural surrounds of the Virginia area was common and followed a tradition established in England by romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.{{Citation |last=Brickey |first=Russell |title=Romantic Verse |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/romantic-verse/3D060006664BF5511D434130DD938585 |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=171 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.013 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} Such writing, like previous literature written during the Jeffersonian era, was typically "written by men of the professional class – clergymen, lawyers, legislators, physicians, teachers"{{Citation |last=Brickey |first=Russell |title=Romantic Verse |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/romantic-verse/3D060006664BF5511D434130DD938585 |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=170 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.013 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} however in 1813 Judith Lomax became the first woman from Virginia to publish a book consisting only of her own written verse.{{Citation |last=Brickey |first=Russell |title=Romantic Verse |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/romantic-verse/3D060006664BF5511D434130DD938585 |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=171 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.013 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} Other women poets of the time included Anna Byrd, Martha Ann Davis and Judith Wormeley.

The Southern Literary Messenger launched in Richmond in 1834.{{sfn|Hayes|2015}} Edgar Allan Poe a prominent literary figure of the antebellum period served as the paper's editor in chief between 1835 and 1837.{{Citation |last=Jones |first=Paul Christian |title=Edgar Allan Poe and the Art of Fiction |date=2015 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/history-of-virginia-literature/edgar-allan-poe-and-the-art-of-fiction/EFFD2A9D5FCFAC9E8A75C18A978F8C37 |work=A History of Virginia Literature |pages=180–192 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=Kevin J. |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781107415164.014 |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |access-date=2022-06-01}} Other literary figures of the period include Virginia-born writers William Alexander Caruthers (1802–1846), John Esten Cooke (1830–1886), Philip Pendleton Cooke (1816–1850), Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784–1851).{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofso00dia_teb |title=Encyclopedia of Southern Culture |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=1989 |isbn=0807818232 |editor1=Charles Reagan Wilson |chapter=Antebellum Era |editor2=William Ferris |chapter-url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/antebellum.html |via=Documenting the American South}} During the Antebellum period The Novel also became a popular form of literary text often highlighting "historic Virginia settings and historic figures" where action and narrative was "set either on a Virginia antebellum plantation or in a crucial moment from Virginia history."{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=195 |oclc=903688822}}

The period of the American Civil War provided an opportunity for literary development for women writers not only from Virginia but within the larger American South.{{Cite book |last=Clabough |first=Casey |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/890072332 |title=Women of War : Selected Memoirs, Poems, and Fiction by Virginia Women Who Lived Through the Civil War. |date=2014 |publisher=Texas Review Press |isbn=978-1-937875-50-3 |location=College Station |pages=17 |oclc=890072332}} Women "in response to the war that rocked their patriarchal society...wrote diaries, memoirs, poetry, and novels".{{Cite book |last=Clabough |first=Casey |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/890072332 |title=Women of War : Selected Memoirs, Poems, and Fiction by Virginia Women Who Lived Through the Civil War. |date=2014 |publisher=Texas Review Press |isbn=978-1-937875-50-3 |location=College Station |pages=12 |oclc=890072332}} The themes explored at this time were predominantly concerned with women's personal experiences of the War in the form of both fiction and non-fictional account.{{Cite book |last=Clabough |first=Casey |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/890072332 |title=Women of War : Selected Memoirs, Poems, and Fiction by Virginia Women Who Lived Through the Civil War. |date=2014 |publisher=Texas Review Press |isbn=978-1-937875-50-3 |location=College Station |oclc=890072332}} Other female Virginian writers include Mary Tucker Magill (Woman, or a Chronicle of the Late War, 1867), Myrta Lockett Avary (A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1903), Maie Dove Day (The Blended Flags), Susan Archer Tally and Marion Harland.

Marion Fontaine Cabell Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia, a cookbook, was published in Richmond in 1878.{{citation |url=http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/browse_int/browse_interest_regional.html#s |title= Regional American Cooking: South and Border States |work=Feeding America: the Historic American Cookbook Project |publisher=Michigan State University |access-date= March 13, 2017 }} In 1855 Sketches of Slave Life: Or, Illustrations of the Peculiar Institution was written by Peter Randolph an ex-Virginian Slave and noted abolitionist.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=223 |oclc=903688822}} He also wrote From Slave Cabin to the Pulpit in 1893. His narratives recorded the day-to-day hardships of slave life in Virginia, "relating how the lives of slaves were controlled by their masters and the laws of the land."{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=223 |oclc=903688822}} Randolph's writing was part of a larger change of literary voices in Virginia's history as African American writers began to write to "assert themselves not only as human beings worthy of freedom and opportunity, but also as equals to whites, with the act of writing their stories being the first step in asserting that equality."{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903688822 |title=A history of Virginia literature |date=2015 |others=Kevin J. Hayes |isbn=978-1-107-05777-7 |location=New York |pages=224 |oclc=903688822}}

The Virginia Writers Club was formed in November 1918{{Cite web |title=Virginia Writers Club |url=https://www.virginiawritersclub.org/ |access-date=2022-05-30 |website=www.virginiawritersclub.org}} and currently has ten chapters. Its mission is to "support and stimulate the art, craft, and business of writing, as well as advocate the literary arts in the broader Virginia community".{{Cite web |title=Virginia Writers Club - About Us |url=https://www.virginiawritersclub.org/aboutVWC |access-date=2022-05-30 |website=www.virginiawritersclub.org}} It has a diverse range of members of both published and unpublished writers, poets, journalists and essayists. They offer courses, contests and hold an annual writing symposium in Virginia.{{Cite web |title=2021 VWC Symposium |url=https://www.virginiawritersclub.org/2022-VWC-Symposium |access-date=2022-05-30 |website=www.virginiawritersclub.org}}

The Poetry Society of Virginia formed in May 1923.{{cite web |url=http://poetrysocietyofvirginia.org/about-psv/ |title=About PSV |publisher= Poetry Society of Virginia |access-date= March 11, 2017 }} According to their mission statement they "seek to promote the writing and enjoyment of poetry through a wide range of programs and monthly events, offered in seven regions across Virginia".{{Cite web |title=ABOUT US |url=https://www.poetrysocietyofvirginia.org/about-us |access-date=2022-05-30 |website=Poetry Society |language=en}} Dr. Charles N. Feidelson, a professor of literature at Yale was appointed as the first president of the society. The current president is Terry Cox-Joseph. The Poetry Society of Virginia holds a festival in the third weekend in May each year and an annual poetry competition.

The Virginia Centre for the Book is a program developed through Virginia Humanities and seeks to "unite communities of readers, writers, artists, and book lovers through year-round programs and partnership initiatives...promoting books, reading, literacy, and the literary life of Virginia"{{Cite web |title=About |url=https://www.vabookcenter.org/about/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=Virginia Center for the Book |language=en-US}} The center is affiliated with University of Virginia and National Endowment for the Humanities, and holds public education initiatives, programs and workshops in an effort to encourage "all Virginians to develop a love of books and reading".{{Cite web |title=About |url=https://www.vabookcenter.org/about/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=Virginia Center for the Book |language=en-US}} The centre is also an affiliate of the Centre for the Book in the Library of Congress.{{Cite web |date=2013 |title=About - Center for the Book {{!}} Library of Congress |url=https://www.read.gov/cfb/about.html |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=www.read.gov}}

The Virginia General Assembly created the position of Poet Laureate of Virginia in 1936. The position is currently{{as of?|date=September 2024}} held by Luisa Igloria, a professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University.{{Cite web |title=HOME |url=http://www.luisaigloria.com/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=LUISA A. IGLORIA |language=en}}

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The Library of Virginia established an annual literary awards program in 1997. Awards are given to Virginian writers in multiple categories including fiction, non-fiction and poetry and aims to honour and celebrate authors and their contributions to the field of Virginia literature.{{Cite web |title=Library of Virginia Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards |url=https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/litawards/ |access-date=2022-05-29 |website=www.lva.virginia.gov}} There are People's Choice Awards for Fiction and Nonfiction works. The library also awards a Literary Lifetime Achievement Award, acknowledging the outstanding achievement of one long-standing individual each year. Past winners of this award include Earl Hamner, Lee Smith, Tom Robbins, Charles Wright, Barbara Kingsolver, Rita Dove, John Grisham, Tom Wolfe, and David Baldacci.{{Cite web |title=Finalists and Winners of the Library of Virginia Annual Literary Awards |url=https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/litawards/winners.htm |access-date=2022-05-29 |website=www.lva.virginia.gov}}

Virginia currently holds an annual festival titled the 'Virginia Festival of the Book' which aims to support emerging and established writers by "bringing together writers and readers to promote and celebrate books, reading, literacy and literary culture".{{Cite web |title=About Us |url=https://www.vabook.org/about/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=Virginia Festival of the Book |language=en-US}} This initiative is organised by The Virginia Centre for the Book and is sponsored by The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation{{Cite web |title=The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation |url=https://cornellmemorialfoundation.org/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=cornellmemorialfoundation.org}} and supported by the University of Virginia. Other major partners include Dominion Energy, Bank of America, CFA Institute and Macmillan Publisher Services.{{Cite web |title=Partners & Sponsors |url=https://www.vabook.org/about/partners/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=Virginia Festival of the Book |language=en-US}} Over twenty thousand people attend each year.{{Cite web |title=Home |url=https://www.vabook.org/ |access-date=2022-06-01 |website=Virginia Festival of the Book |language=en-US}}

• :Category:Writers from Virginia
• List of newspapers in Virginia
• :Category:Virginia in fiction
• :Category:Libraries in Virginia
• Southern United States literature
• American literary regionalism

{{Reflist}}

{{Refbegin}}

• {{cite journal |title=Literature of Colonial Virginia |journal=American Historical Magazine |oclc=4265190 |volume=4 |publisher= National Americana Society |location= New York |author= Carl Holliday |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WmUKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA46 |year=1909 }}
• {{cite book|title=Library of Southern Literature |editor= Lucian Lamar Knight |publisher= Martin and Hoyt Company |location=Atlanta |year= 1913

|chapter= Fifty Reading Courses: Virginia

|volume=16 |pages=217–225

|hdl= 2027/uc1.31175034925258?urlappend=%3Bseq=525 |chapter-url= https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31175034925258?urlappend=%3Bseq=525

|via=HathiTrust

}}

• {{cite book

|author= Elsie Dershem |title= Outline of American State Literature |publisher=World Company |location= Lawrence, Kansas |year= 1921

|chapter= Virginia

|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/outlineofamerica001157mbp#page/n179/mode/2up |via= Internet Archive

}}

• {{Citation |title = Virginia: a Guide to the Old Dominion |publisher=Oxford University Press |author = Federal Writers' Project |date = 1941 |series=American Guide Series |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PBBAaN0aDicC |via=Google Books

|chapter=Literature |pages=156–166

|isbn=9780403021956

}}

• {{cite journal |title= Literature of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century |author= Howard Mumford Jones |journal=Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |series= New series|volume= 19 |doi=10.2307/25058511 |year=1946 |issue= 2 |pages= 1–47 |jstor= 25058511 |bibcode= 1946MAAAS..19....1J |hdl= 2027/uva.x001249441 |hdl-access= free }}
• Leslie Bjorncrantz. A Checklist of Virginia Writers, Past and Present. Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Library, 1970
• {{cite book|author= G. Thomas Tanselle |title=Guide to the Study of United States Imprints |url=https://archive.org/details/guidetostudyofun0002tans |url-access= registration |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-36761-6 |year= 1971 }} (Includes information about Virginia literature)
• Welford Dunaway Taylor. Virginia Authors, Past and Present. Richmond, Va.: Virginia Association of Teachers of English, 1972
• Richard Beale Davis. Literature and Society in Early Virginia 1608–1840. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1973
• Della Anderson. 101 Virginia Women Writers: A Select Bibliography. Richmond, Va.: Virginia Women's Cultural History Project, 1984
• {{cite book |editor1= Joseph M. Flora |editor2= Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan |title= Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs |publisher= Louisiana State University Press |isbn= 978-0-8071-2692-9 |year= 2001 |chapter= Literature of Virginia |page= [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780807126929/page/940 940+] |author= George C. Longest |ref= {{harvid|Longest|2001}} |url= https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780807126929/page/940 }}
• {{citation |publisher= Library of Virginia |location=Richmond, VA |title= Researching Virginia Authors |author=Sarah Huggins |series=Research Guides |url=https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/VaAuthorsBib.pdf |year=2003

| ref = {{harvid|Huggins|2003}}

}}. (Subject guide)

• {{cite book|editor=Kevin J. Hayes|title= History of Virginia Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vFqtCAAAQBAJ|year= 2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-05777-7

| ref = {{harvid|Hayes|2015}}

}}

{{refend}}

• {{citation |title= Printing in Colonial Virginia |author= David Rawson |url= http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Printing_in_Colonial_Virginia |encyclopedia= Encyclopedia Virginia |publisher= Virginia Foundation for the Humanities }}
• {{citation |author=Thomas Cutrer |title=Popular Literature during the Civil War |encyclopedia= Encyclopedia Virginia |publisher= Virginia Foundation for the Humanities |url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Popular_Literature_During_the_Civil_War }}
• {{cite web |url=http://www.ala.org/united/products_services/literarylandmarks/landmarksbystate/landmarksbystate |title=Literary Landmarks by State: Virginia |publisher= American Library Association |location=Chicago |author= United for Libraries |date=27 February 2009 }}

{{Virginia}}

{{Culture of US}}

{{North American topic|| literature}}

Category:American literature by state

Category:Virginia culture