The Ocean's Menace

A twist-filled adventure story set in a treacherous land where most hunters dare not venture—enhanced with artwork and a literary scholar’s commentary.

One of the more underappreciated aspects of Archibald Rutledge’s varied literary efforts is the way he could weave stories of danger in the wilds. What he frequently described as chimeras—great sharks, alligators, rattlesnakes, and cottonmouths of incredible and often embellished dimensions, wild hogs with razor-sharp tusks, and more—clearly fascinated him. Similarly, he exhibited a knack for twists and turns in his tales reminiscent of O. Henry at his best.

“The Ocean’s Menace” offers a fine example. The title of the short story may conjure images of a massive white shark or a devilfish—but in fact “The Ocean” is a remote, treacherous tract of land where hunters dared not venture and which locals viewed with a mixture of awe and alarm. It provides an ideal setting for this tale—in which, Instead of a mighty stag or an antlered giant, the quarry proves to be the hunter’s salvation. Delightfully told, with an abundance of twists and turns as the story unfolds, this is the sage of the Santee—a John Burroughs Medal winner and South Carolina’s first poet laureate—at his finest.

A project of South Carolina Humanities benefiting South Carolina literary programs, this new edition of “The Ocean’s Menace” is illustrated in handsome charcoal etchings by Southern artist Stephen Chesley. Award-winning outdoors writer and noted Rutledge scholar Jim Casada provides the volume’s introduction and afterword.

“These books remind us of Mr. Rutledge’s command of the English language, his great skills of observation of the natural world, and his fondness for distilling universal truths from stories of local essence . . . It is good to have Mr. Rutledge with us once more.” —Pat Conroy