The Code of Honor

A gentleman insulted in public is told not to answer—not because the insult is slight, but because he might offend the company. And before a duel, each man is entitled to time to make his will.

In the early nineteenth-century world John Lyde Wilson knew, an insult could set a formal machinery in motion: letters, negotiations, seconds—and, if no peace could be made, a meeting with pistols. Wilson’s code insists on restraint at every turn, charging seconds to calm their friends, correct misunderstandings and seek an honorable settlement. Yet it also lays down exact rules for what happens when reconciliation fails, from choosing the ground to deciding who gives the word. Can a system built to govern a duel keep anger from carrying two men all the way to it?

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