Marion “The Swamp” Fox: not his real name
June 18th, 2010 at 10:10 pm ET
Dear editor of New York: The Novel for Kindle — the person whose name you render as “Marion ‘The Swamp’ Fox” is not a fictional character named Marion Fox; he is Francis Marion (1732-1795), known as “The Swamp Fox” for his elusiveness, an important historical person of the Revolutionary War era and one of the great heroes in whom South Carolina takes pride. There is not a schoolchild in South Carolina who has not been told, in hagiographic fashion, of his exploits. Indeed, I would wager that if you (yes, you) have only heard of two South Carolinians who died before you were born, one of them is bound to be Francis Marion. (The other is probably John C. Calhoun.)
The fact that this editor would think “The Swamp” is conceivable as a nickname for a historical person may suggest that Amazon’s ebook production is being outsourced to some country where knowledge of English is, shall we say, contingent. Or perhaps it’s just a typo in the original, but that seems exceedingly unlikely, as this is a reputable novel that seems to have been carefully copy-edited on the whole.
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Rich Mintz blogs on online fundraising and social media, American history and culture, bicycling and urbanism, food, technology, and other topics. Professionally, he's an expert in fundraising, constituency development, and social media for nonprofits, cultural organizations, cause-related marketers, and corporations. He is based in New York, where he serves as Vice President, Strategy, for 
