Janice Holt Giles

Janice Holt Giles was a Kentucky author who lived near Knifley in Adair County, Kentucky. She was born Janice Meredith Holt on March 28, 1909, in Altus, Arkansas. Her first marriage, to Otto Moore in 1927, ended in divorce in 1939. She met Henry Giles on a 40-hour bus trip in 1943 and married him in 1945. They settled in Henry's native Adair County in 1949 and lived there until Janice's death on June 1, 1979 and Henry's death in 1986.

Giles is noted primarily for her historical novels, set in Kentucky or on the Western frontier. She also wrote contemporary fiction set in the Kentucky hills, as well as autobiographical and nonfiction works, some of them co-authored with Henry. Her works include the Piney Woods trilogy, consisting of "The Enduring Hills" (1950), "Miss Willie" (1951), and "Tara's Healing" (1952), and the Kentucky trilogy, consisting of "The Kentuckians" (1953), "Hannah Fowler" (1956), and "The Believers" (1957). The Janice Holt Giles and Henry Giles Society was established in 1996 to preserve the literary legacy of Janice Holt Giles and Henry Giles and to restore their log home.

Giles's historical fiction works form a worthy study of early American pioneer life in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico among other states. Her accounts are accurate geographically and historically and are tied together by the fictitious Cooper, Fowler and Cartwright families. Real historical figures from Giles's novels include Ben Logan, Daniel Boone, James Harrod, William Whitley, James Wilkinson, Gen. Matthew Arbuckle, and Sam Houston. She also provides a realistic historical perspective of the relationships between Native Americans, White Settlers and African Americans. The interested reader can gain a solid understanding of the early process of national (USA) expansion by reading the listed volumes in the following order.

Book (approximate period covered; primary geographical settings): "The Kentuckians" (1775 - 1778; VA, KY, TN), "Hannah Fowler" (1778 - 1781; KY, TN, OH), "The Land Beyond the Mountains" (1781 - 1792; KY, PA, IN), "The Believers" (1795 - 1805; KY), "Johnny Osage" (1809 - 1815; OK, AR), "The Voyage to Santa Fe" (1820; OK, TX, NM), "Savanna" (1829 - 1834; OK, AR), "Run Me a River" (September 1861; KY, IN).

References

* [http://www.appalachianbooks.com/Authors/Janice%20Holt%20Giles.htm Janice Holt Giles]
* [http://www.gilessociety.org/ Janice Holt Giles & Henry Giles Society]
* [http://www.wku.edu/Library/kylm/collections/inhouse/mss/giles.html Western Kentucky University Libraries manuscript collection]