"Grand, Gloomy and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave." Roger W.
Brucker. Cave Books, Dayton, Ohio; 2009. ISBN 978-0-939748-71-6. 6 by
9 inches, 269 pages, softbound. $15.95.
The slave Stephen Bishop is the only show-cave guide in the United
States to become a significant historical figure. He was a guide at
Mammoth Cave for about twenty antebellum years, and his fame at the
time was such that visitors to the cave often specifically requested
him as their guide. He is also famous for his explorations in the
cave. This historical novel, in the form of a fictional autobiography
of his wife, is based on the large amount of information available
about Bishop and the cave during that period. An epilog states that
Charlotte Bishop's fictional narrative ends in 1859, two years after
Stephen's death, but in fact the book ends with Stephen's funeral in
1857. Perhaps the final two years were left out because they were
thought anticlimactic. The book includes a copy of the 1845 version of
the Bishop map of Mammoth Cave, poorly presented across unnumbered
pages with no provision for binding-edge margins. That map is, at
best, a pace-and-compass map, but much of it is really just a sketch
from memory. Nevertheless it was the best map of Mammoth Cave for many
years.
"Beneath Their Feet: A Novel about Mammoth Cave and Its People," by
Patricia Quinlan, is another historical novel about Mammoth Cave. It
was published by iUniverse (a vanity press) in 2004. It is really more
of a series of stories than a novel, and as such it covers a longer
time, 1811 to 1941, and a wider range of interesting history, but
Brucker's book is more focused. Both are painless ways to learn some
spelean history, if you aren't too worried about exactly where the
facts end and the fiction begins.--Bill Mixon
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