William Gilmore Simms - Life and Work

Life and Work

Simms was born on April 17, 1806, in Charleston, South Carolina, of Scottish-Irish ancestors. His mother died during his infancy, and his father failed in business and joined Coffee's Indian fighters; as a result, Simms was brought up by his grandmother. In his teen years, he worked as a clerk in a drug store but began to study law at the age of eighteen. He married Anne Malcolm Giles in 1826. The bar of Charleston admitted him to practice in 1827, though he soon abandoned this profession for literature.

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