those in his home town of Charleston, did not support Simms's work, in part because he lacked an aristocratic background. Eventually, however, he was referred to as the Southern version of James Fenimore Cooper, and Charleston residents invited him into their prestigious St. Cecilia Society. In 1845, Simms published The Wigwam and the Cabin (1845); a compilation of short stories, one of which describes a loyal slave. Edgar Allan Poe thought the collection "decidedly the most American of American books". and declared Simms to be "immeasurably the greatest writer of fiction in America." In 1852, Simms published As Good as A Comedy; Or, The Tennessean’s Story. It and "Paddy McGann" (1867) constitute his two full-length works of Southern humor; he also wrote "Sharp Snaffles" and "Bill Bauldy," two tall tales. He also wrote poetry and, in a letter to literary critic and poet Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Simms said that he was not interested in form as much as content, torn "between the desire to appear correct, and the greater desire to be original and true". Nonfiction history and biography Simms' History of South Carolina (1842) served for several generations as the standard school textbook on the state's history. He also wrote The Social Principle: The True Source of National Permanence (1843) and several very popular biographies of Revolutionary War heroes Francis Marion, Nathanael Greene, and John Laurens. He also penned a compendium of Captain John Smith’s works covering the founding of the Virginia Colony as well as a book detailing the Chevalier Bayard. Simms wrote a history of Alabama, and was a popular lecturer on American history. He accumulated one of the largest collections of Revolutionary War manuscripts in the country. Most of this collection was lost when stragglers from Sherman's army burned his plantation home Woodlands, located in Bamberg, SC. Pro-slavery writings Simms strongly supported slavery. In the November 1837 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, Simms published a lengthy review of English social reformer Harriet Martineau's Society in America, a review that essentially functioned as an extended defense of slavery. This essay would be published as a standalone pamphlet the next year under the title Slavery in America; the essay would be republished in 1852 under the title "The Morals of Slavery" as part of the edited volume The Pro-Slavery Argument. Simms was very critical of Uncle Tom's Cabin and wrote negative reviews. Some scholars have argued that