Library

Everything on EPIC. Official parts are written or approved by the site's author; Community parts come from invited contributors.

Engines

E · Engine Official

Standard Engine

The universal rules for every EPIC conversation, in any era. How to speak, stay in character, keep to the record, and coach the human afterward.

P · Period Official

Boston Punished, 1773–1774

From the destruction of the tea at Boston to the eve of the Continental Association. Parliament answers Boston with a closed port and a remade charter; the colonies rally with fasts, conventions, and a general congress, and almost no one yet wants independence.
P · Period Official

The Association Enforced, 1774–1775

From the Continental Association to the eve of Lexington. Committees enforce the boycott, volunteer companies drill, and the colonies wait for the King's answer to Congress's petition. Still almost no one wants independence.

I · Individual Official

Philip Vickers Fithian

A young Presbyterian from New Jersey, tutor to Robert Carter's children at Nomini Hall, Virginia, 1773–1774. Earnest, observant, homesick, and troubled by slavery.

C · Conversation Official

Asking about the tutor's post at Nomini Hall

Saturday afternoon, June 18, 1774. You are a young college man from the North, come to ask Philip Fithian about succeeding him as tutor to the Carter children, three weeks after Virginia's Assembly was dissolved over a fast day for Boston.

X · Exercise Official

A first visit to Nomini Hall

Hold your first full first-person conversation, as a newcomer to Virginia in June 1774, and stay in character when the talk turns to slavery and politics.
X · Exercise Official

Speaking 1774 English at Nomini Hall

Practice the speech register of an educated colonist, with forms of address, period vocabulary, and no modern words, in a conversation with a Princeton-trained tutor who notices words.