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Although the limits placed upon this volume preclude selections from the colonial writers of the South, yet some account of their work is a necessary introduction to the later literature. From the earliest days of the Virginia colony there was considerable activity in writing. The first book written in Virginia, though published away, was Captain John Smith's "A True Relation of Virginia," written in 1608. A later book, written during his stay in Virginia, was entitled "A Map of Virginia." Both of these books were descriptive of the country and the Indians, and as the writer was a keen observer and a graphic narrator, his accounts are interesting. In 1610 William Strachey, secretary of the Virginia colony, wrote at Jamestown and sent to London for publication his "A True Repertory of the Wrack and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the Islands of the Burmudas." This was an account of the disaster by a member of the expedition that accompanied Sir Thomas Gates, and is memorable for a vivid description of a storm at sea. It is commonly thought that this book may have been a source of suggestion to Shakespeare for the opening incident of his play "The Tempest," there being interesting parallels between the two accounts. The earliest poetry written in Virginia was a translation of ten books of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," made by George Sandys during his stay in the colony as its treasurer. But these writers may hardly be claimed as American writers. As a matter of fact, they were Englishmen, who eventually went back to their English home, writing for Englishmen in order to describe what they had seen and felt in the new country.

It seems, therefore, on the whole more fitting to place the beginning of literature in the South at the time when native-born writers began to