Randolph P. Shaffner

About Randolph "Ran" Preston Shaffner

A 1940 native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Ran has been teaching, writing, and publishing professionally since the 1960s. His fields of interest have ranged from world literature and literary criticism to creative nonfiction, history, poetry, and biography.

He attended Davidson College and earned his degree in English with honors in writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He went on to complete his master's and doctorate in comparative literature, specializing in European Romanticism. He studied German as a Goethe Institute Scholar through the German Embassy in Munich and French at the University of Besançon.

He taught English as a Foreign Language for the U.S. Peace Corps in Chiengrai and Bangkok, Thailand. He taught English and French at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, English and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill, English and World Literature at Fairfield University, and Great Books in Highlands, N.C., for Western Carolina University-Cullowhee.

His publications include a world survey of the Apprenticeship Novel and several books, articles, and DVDs on a variety of historical subjects, for which he has received book and multimedia awards from the North Carolina Society of Historians and the American Association for State and Local History. He has authored several National Register and North Carolina Historical Highway Marker nominations. His more than seventy lectures, delivered at public and private venues, have focused primarily on historical, literary, religious, and occasional topics.

In 2019 he was awarded the North Carolina Society of Historians' Historian of the Year Award "for the many valuable contributions he has made toward the collection, preservation and perpetuation of North Carolina's rich history."

Ran and his wife, Margaret, have five sons and six grandchildren. They live in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where he established and managed for almost thirty years Cyrano's Bookshop and Faraway Publishing. In retirement he now serves as cofounder and archivist emeritus for the Highlands Historical Society and cofounder and ex-officio board member of the Highlands Plateau Greenway. For years he and his wife maintained the Whiteside Mountain Trail for the U.S. Forest Service. They currently divide their time between Highlands and Givens Highland Farms in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Books

Heart of the Blue Ridge

Faraway Publishing, 2001 · 2nd ed. 2004 | 840 pages

Recipient — NC Society of Historians History Book Award, 2002

Recipient — American Association of State and Local History Award, 2005

On March 6, 1875, Sam Kelsey and C. C. Hutchinson paid $2 an acre for just over a square mile of the Sugartown Highlands in the Blue Ridge Mountains and began building a town 4,000 feet above the clouds. This is a history of the origin and growth of that town — with a Northern climate set high in the South — including the ever-continuing struggle between those who would preserve and those who would exploit its unique appeal.

Available at Highlands Historical Society.

Read Reviews

"Heart of the Blue Ridge is huge (737 pages) and exhaustively researched, but it is also a delightful and satisfying read. The book overflows with exquisite black and white images and tasty tales of the folk—rich and poor, common and famous—who have made this mountain town unique. Shaffner's storytelling style, almost chatty at times, makes you forget you are reading 'history.'"—Barbara McRae, Franklin Press, Franklin, N.C.

"Ran Shaffner spent eight years researching this book. It contains over 300 photographs (many from the George Masa collection), and considered in its totality, is perhaps the most exhaustively developed 'regional histories' that I have ever seen."—Gary Carden, Sylva, N.C.

"Your book is a wonder! I don't know how you collected all the facts in it. It is truly a monumental work. You have rendered a service to all Highlands lovers that will live forever."—Dr. William C. Marett, Seneca, S.C.

"Packed with archival photographs, this well-written narrative chronicles Highlands's development and evokes the town's charm. With the author's exhaustive attention to all details, from the smallest to the largest, the book will undoubtedly become the definitive history of Highlands, N.C."—Walter T. Evans, N.C. Historical Review, vol. 74, no. 2 (April 2002)

The Father of Virginia Military Institute

McFarland Publishing, 2014

The Virginia Military Institute launched an educational revolution when it became the first school in the American South to combine classical and practical courses under an effective system of military discipline. This biography of Col. J. T. L. Preston unfolds the life of a teacher, soldier, husband, and father who defined VMI as it exists today, served Stonewall Jackson as his first adjutant general, married the Poetess of the Confederacy, and fathered a family whose members proudly bore the stamp of their father's inviolable character.

Available at McFarland Publishing and Amazon.

Read Reviews

"A fascinating, well-researched and long overdue biography of the Virginia Military Institute's most unheralded founder and underappreciated champion of educational reform."—Dr. Bradford A. Wineman, Marine Corps University

"This is a fascinating and extremely readable book, deeply researched but never pedantic. It presents a thorough and persuasive defense of Col. Preston's unique role in the founding and preservation of V.M.I."—J. B. McAfee, Richmond, Va.

"Shaffner's portrait of J.T.L. Preston makes an important contribution to our understanding of this significant nineteenth-century Virginian."—Mark F. Miller, Journal of Southern History, Vol. 82, No. 1 (Feb. 2016)

"Shaffner's biography is distinguished by superb, exhaustive use of sources that document Preston's years in Lexington, Va."—Robert K. Krick, Civil War Times, Vol. 54, Issue 4 (Aug. 2015)

The Apprenticeship Novel

Peter Lang Publishing, 1984

A Study of the "Bildungsroman" as a Regulative Type in Western Literature with a Focus on Three Classic Representatives by Goethe, Maugham, and Mann. In an attempt to describe the apprenticeship novel as a modifiable type in Western literature, Dr. Shaffner makes no pretense at formulating a prescriptive norm but rather suggests a theoretical stance from which potential candidates of the type can be seen as concrete examples — Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, and Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain.

Occasionally available at AbeBooks or Amazon.

Read Reviews

"A particular strength of this study, one of few considerations of the apprenticeship novel in English, is the insight afforded into Maugham's understanding of Wilhelm Meister. Recommended for students at undergraduate and graduate levels and for general readers."—E. Glass, Rosemont College, Choice, September 1984

"An extremely useful guide … Shaffner, who from the outset makes it clear that it is not his goal to provide 'the' true answer, nonetheless arrives at a list of no fewer than 23 'concrete potentialities,' 5 characteristic 'presuppositions' and 8 'additional qualities.'"—Matthew Fentem, Dark Apprenticeships: The Novels of John Irving (July 2012)

Images of America: Highlands

Arcadia Publishing, 2008

Recipient — NC Society of Historians History Book Award, 2009

Perched on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and founded in 1875 as a health and summer resort, the town of Highlands enjoys a northern climate in a southern setting. The photographs in this volume attest to the extraordinary variety of characters that inhabited the Highlands plateau at the town's founding and during the first half-century of its growth and development.

Available at Arcadia Publishing and Highlands Historical Society.

Read Reviews

"The author's personal ties to the area and sense of place lend an engaging authenticity and homespun perspective to the book. Highlands is a pleasure to read and compares favorably with other titles in the series."—Jeff Futch, North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 3 (July 2009)

First Creation: 100 Years of Land Conservation

Faraway Publishing, 2009

Recipient — NC Society of Historians History Book Award, 2016

With this book the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust celebrated the centennial of its first land purchase in 1909, making it the oldest land trust in North Carolina and one of the oldest in the United States. A photographic essay of landscapes, flora, fauna, and viewscapes of the Highlands-Cashiers plateau preserved for the perpetual enjoyment and benefit of the public.

Available at Highlands Historical Society.

The Hudson Library, 1884–1994

Hudson Library, 1994

This book narrates the 110-year history of the Hudson Library of Highlands, the second oldest library in North Carolina. It focuses on the community leaders who founded and sustained the library and on the changing literary taste of its patrons through the years.

Available at Highlands Historical Society or AbeBooks.

Read Reviews

"I know of nothing else quite like this. Into the history of a town library, Ran Shaffner has woven stories of the town and its growth, as well as many of its people and all manner of evidence of books. I think book lovers of all types will love the memories it evokes."—John Ehle

"The original and delightful addition to Shaffner's history is his skillful interweaving of local and world events. The small community is not isolated from the larger world."—Wilma Dykeman

Highlands Heritage Trail

First Published 2007 | Highlands Chamber of Commerce

The town of Highlands, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is unique among the communities of Western North Carolina. Compiled by Randolph P. Shaffner, Archivist for the Highlands Historical Society, and sponsored by the Highlands Chamber of Commerce, the Town of Highlands, and the Highlands Historical Society, this itinerary is a walking tour of many historical buildings and sites within the business district.

Available at Highlands Chamber of Commerce.

Contributions to Other Works

Here's to the Land: A Celebration of 60 Years by the N.C. Poetry Society

NC Poetry Society, 1992

"A strong sense of place is a defining quality in the best of Southern, and North Carolina, prose and poetry. Add to this the emphasis on people and a heightened awareness of time by a great many poets and we have a natural division of the poetry contained in this volume, published to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the North Carolina Poetry Society." —Sam Ragan

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism Vol. 22

Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism, Volume 22

Gale, 1989

Excerpts from criticism of the works of nineteenth-century novelists, poets, playwrights, short-story writers, and other creative writers. Among those profiled are Thomas Carlyle, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Geraldine Jewsbury, and Thomas Love Peacock. Pages 22–27 are quoted for their focus on characteristics, types, and definitions of the Bildungsroman.

The Heritage of Macon County, Volume II

Macon County Historical Society, 1998

This volume includes many family stories of the people of Macon County, North Carolina, not only to assist the present generation but also for those who will come later.

Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Volume 408

Gale, 2020

A biographical and bibliographical guide to current writers in all fields including poetry, fiction and nonfiction, journalism, drama, television and movies. Information is provided by the authors themselves or drawn from published interviews, feature stories, book reviews, and other materials.