Corner history book set for re-release

The Corner was first published in 2001.
PHOTOS BY HAWES SPENCER

After several years of unavailability, Coy Barefoot's history of the UVA Corner district is set for republication June 3.

The move comes as a rescue of sorts for the copiously illustrated volume which first appeared in 2001. Featuring hundreds of vintage photographs from the 1850s to the 1950s and all the way up to the turn of the century, the mix of history, image, and anecdote sold briskly at the UVA Bookstore and other local shops. However, the subsequent dissolution of the publishing house, the Howell Press, prevented many readers from buying a copy.

Barefoot, also author of Thomas Jefferson on Leadership, relates that he personally put in a bid to successfully snag nearly 1,000 copies on a pallet at a Waynesboro-area sheriff's auction a couple of years ago. But more permanent salvation came in the form of the UVA Alumni Association, which is acting as publisher for what's not quite a new edition but which does come with dust-cover praise from such luminaries as John Casteen and Larry Sabato.

For Barefoot, who divides his days between a public policy institute and a news/talk radio station, the Association's decision to republish on June 3 touches off a wave of signing events–- and gratitude.

"Fortunately," says Barefoot, "the folks at the Alumni Association loved the book as much as I do."