Robert Bain - Böcker

This collection deserves a long review in order to get the attention it has earned. But how would a reviewer do rounded justice in, say, five hundred words to fifty entries by fifty different scholar-critics on `Southerners whose careers ended before 1900 or thereabouts'? Furthermore, each entry was required to follow a five-part pattern: `a biographical sketch, a discussion of major themes, an assessment of the scholarship . . . a chronological list of the author's works, and a bibliography of selected criticism.' That pattern reinforces a reference-work effect that the precise and experienced editors intended. Only a pedant will quible--yet will also regulary use the book and send students to it. It will outlast any reviewer now alive. American LiteratureA companion volume to Fifty Southern Writers After 1900, this collection focuses on the work of writers whose careers ended before or about 1900, whose works are often anthologized, and whose writing figures prominently in the history of Southern letters. Each essay, written by a specialist in the field, contains five parts: a biographical sketch, a discussion of the author's major themes, an assessment of the scholarship on the author's works, a chronological list of works, and a bibliography of selected criticism. The selected essays treat the individual writers in substantial detail and offer a fresh attempt to estimate the achievements of the authors included as well as a valuable assessment of the secondary work and scholarship to date.

The extraordinary flowering of Southern literary talent in the early twentieth century, the Southern Literary Renascence, has continued virtually unabated, showing increasing vitality in recent decades. These newer fiction writers, poets, dramatists, and journalists reflect in their work the changing social conditions of the South while also presenting traditional Southern values and qualities. Their astonishing output constitutes a phenomenon worthy of being called a Second Southern Literary Renascence. Joseph M. Flora and Robert Bain, editors of the acclaimed Fifty Southern Writers before 1900 and Fifty Southern Writers after 1900, found that they could only begin to suggest the continuing abundance and significance of Southern writing in the latter volume. Retaining the same format, they have developed two new volumes for the contemporary period. The first, focusing on fiction, comprises forty-nine talented novelists, including such popular figures as Pat Conroy, Gail Godwin, T. R. Pearson, Anne Tyler, and Alice Walker. The companion volume, (Contemporary Poets, Dramatists, Essayists, and Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook forthcoming from Greenwood Press) will cover primarily poets, playwrights, and essayists as well as fiction writers who have made major contributions to these other genres.The essays, written by scholars and critics, present in each case a biographical sketch, an analysis of the writer's style and major themes, an assessment of reviews and scholarship, a chronological list of works, and a bibliography of selected criticism. Considered individually and comparatively and with attention to the editors' introductory essay, these bio-bibliographical studies clearly demonstrate the state and strength of Southern letters.