William Elliott was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, to a family of immense wealth and highest social standing. He was the eldest son of William and Phoebe Waight Elliott. He wrote essays, poetry, verse drama, and political and agricultural pamphlets. He was a planter, legislator, economist, philosopher, and authority on agricultural reform. Yet, he is remembered best for a single work, Carolina Sports by Land and Water; Including Incidents of Devil-Fishing, &c. (1846), a well-loved volume of sketches, tales, and essays in bold, manly prose. It is a work that vigorously recounts rattling good adventures in a finely polished style that harks back to the English personal essay of the eighteenth century. It comes from an intellect whose acute powers of discernment are never in question, and whose genial good sense is among the greatest strengths of the volume. Elliott uses baroque flourishes, mock-heroic burlesques, colloquialisms, and classical references...