In this outstanding collection, five historians and literary critics explore the many ways that southern writers influence and are influenced by their region. Christopher Morris examines the relationship between economic development and the humor of several “Old Southwestern” writers, while Susan A. Eacker explains how South Carolina author Louisa McCord came to defend slavery. Anne Goodwyn Jones offers a penetrating deconstruction of gender in the southern literary renaissance, Charles Joyner reassesses William Styron’s controversial decision to write The Confessions of Nat Turner in the first person, and Bertram Wyatt-Brown reveals the connection between depression and literary creativity. 

Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History at the University of Florida, is the author of Southern Honor, The House of Percy, and The Shaping of Southern Culture, among other books.

Anne Goodwyn Jones is associate professor of English at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Christopher Morris is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington and author of Becoming Southern.

Steven G. Reinhardt, author of Justice in the Sarladais, 1770-1790, is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington.