SOURCE: “Revolution, Domestic Life, and the End of ‘Common Mercy’ in Crèvecoeur's ‘Landscapes,’” in William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 2, April, 1998, pp. 281-96.

In the following essay, Richards explores the contrast between the idyllic image of American life in Letter III of Letters from an American Farmer and the nightmare of Revolutionary cruelty depicted in “Landscapes.”

Few Revolutionary-era writers defy categorization as resolutely as Michel Guillaume Jean-de-Crèvecoeur. Best known for his book Letters from an American Farmer (1782),¹ Crèvecoeur wrote several essays, sketches, and other short works in English that remained in manuscript until 1925 or, in a few cases, until 1995. One of those fugitive pieces, a collection of dramatic scenes entitled “Landscapes” (1776 or 1777), is a bitter, deeply ironic denunciation of the Revolution that raises critical questions about the idealized America depicted in the famous Letter III, “What Is an American?”² Although there is very little scholarship...