Notices of Doubtful Value: The Legacy of Arthur Middleton Reeves

ABSTRACT: Arthur Middleton Reeves (1856–1891) is a forgotten figure in Indiana literary history. Hailing from Richmond, Indiana, Reeves left an important impact in the niche corner of medieval Icelandic studies. Author Zachary Melton outlines how, during the nineteenth century, the scholarship and popular writing about Vinland and the Vinland sagas were steeped in ideals of white and Protestant superiority, intertwined with conspiracy theories, and used to bolster claims of Anglo-American power in the United States. In his landmark book, The Finding of Wineland the Good (1890), however, Reeves not only refused to engage with these ideals but argued against them, attempting to present the medieval Icelandic sagas that take place in North America as incredible pieces of historical literature, free from ideology. By tracing Reeves's beginnings in Indiana to his travels in Iceland to the hardships faced before his untimely death, a picture emerges of a fascinating, nineteenth-century Hoosier who made important strides to try and divorce medieval Icelandic sagas from ideals associated with white supremacy—an issue that has come to the forefront in the twenty-first century in the wake of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.