The World of Books: Books of the Year
New York Sun Staff Editorial
Excerpted from The New York Sun, 12/31/04

"Each year The New York Sun asks celebrated writers and New Yorkers to name their favorite books of the year. From the latest scholarship to the latest novel, here are their choices.

"THOMAS FLEMING is the author of Illusion of Victory: Americans in World War I.

"The Lady of the High Hills: Natalie Delage Sumter (University of South Carolina Press, 188 pages, $29.95) by Thomas Tisdale. In a contest for offbeat books, this would take first prize. Natalie Delage Sumter was a beautiful French girl who fled the Reign of Terror at the age of 11 and became the ward of Aaron Burr. Be prepared for some pleasant surprises."

Journal of Southern History, August 2003:

"Tisdale's aim is clearly to provide a well-documented and readable account of Natalie Delage Sumter's varied life. He follows his subject on her many journeys across three continents, using primary sources to reconstruct her feelings and activities at each port of call. Combining informed narrative of the historical background with this complete account of his subject's life, Tisdale succeeds for the most part in producing a biography that will be accessible to a wide audience.

"...(D)espite being a participant in the early modern Atlantic world in the fullest sense of the word, we are left with the impression she was at her happiest in Paris, close to her family. In this way, Sumter presents an alternative, woman's outlook on this expanding world, one that is clearly at odds with the adventure and opportunity that the Atlantic world is usually seen to embody during this era. Hopefully, Tisdale's competent account will encourage further research into the life of this fascinating and extraordinary early modern woman."

-- Emma Hart, University of St. Andrews

Myrtle Beach Sun News, July 2002:

"The name Natalie Delage doesn't stick in your mind from history classes like, say, Aaron Burr.

"But the notorious Burr, President Thomas Jefferson's vice president and dueling partner with Alexander Hamilton, all but adopted Delage, a girl with royal lineage who had fled the guillotines of France for refuge in budding New York in 1793. Delage became tight friends with Burr's daughter Theodosia.

"In their childhood and teen years, Delage and Theodosia Burr dined at Aaron Burr's table with Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jerome, James Madison, Jefferson and even, in friendlier days, Hamilton.

"'Natalie became a sister for Theodosia and a daughter for Aaron Burr," wrote Thomas Tisdale in his book "A Lady of the High Hills: Natalie Delage Sumter.'

"Tisdale's presentation of these amazing social, political and geographical connections would be exhausting if they weren't so interesting. Tisdale, a Charleston attorney, gives us Natalie Delage Sumter's world and life, in a clearly written, densely detailed book that falls perfectly between academic and popular writing. "A Lady of the High Hills" will be intriguing to anyone studying relations between France and the United States during the countries' revolutionary eras, not to mention S.C. history."

-- Colin Burch, The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News, July 2002

The State, February 2002:

"Natalie Delage Sumter was born into French royalty (godchild of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, no less) and fled her native land during the Revolution. For a time she lived in Aaron Burr's household in New York, then returned to France, where she met and fell in love with Thomas Sumter Jr., son of the famous Revolutionary War "Gamecock," Thomas Sumter. She had a diplomatic career in Europe and wound up her life in South Carolina as a member of Planter aristocracy at Stateburg. Whew! Charleston attorney Tisdale competently chronicles her eventful life in this newly published biography of a fascinating woman whose story merits the attention."

-- William Starr, The State newspaper, Columbia, S.C.