Southern Women's Writing, Colonial to Contemporary

"The southern lady, traditionally depicted as a bloodlessly marmoreal icon, is jostled off her pedestal by living, moving, and, above all, <i>speaking </i>and <i>writing </i>women, black and white, rich and poor, old and young, in this unique anthology which so pleasurably delineates a long-obscured feminine literary tradition."—Veronica Makowsky, University of Connecticut

"Timely and long overdue.  The contribution of women to southern traditions is often undervalued, and gathering them here provides an unmistakable mark of their range and quality.  This collection should encourage important reevaluations of southern writing and the contributions of its women authors."—Barbara C. Ewell, Loyola University, New Orleans

 A problematic relationship forms the core of this anthology—the interwoven lives of southern women.  On the one hand, they are linked by gender; on the other, they are divided by racism, class conflict, and sexual politics.  As suggested by these selections from both white and African-American women from the early eighteenth to the late twentieth century, their struggles capture the essence and the evolution of the southern woman’s voice.

 With artistic and historical richness seldom found in literary anthologies, this collection includes letters, journal and diary entries, essays, poetry, and fiction, with an introduction to each historical period and a biography of each author.

 While all the writers share the label "southern woman," some test the boundary of that designation.  Fanny Kemble, a British actress, moved to the Georgia plantation that her husband inherited; Leigh Allison Wilson, the youngest writer, was born and raised in the South but writes about New York state.  However, all authors reflect or refract their personal experience; together their work conveys the range and texture of the literary tradition of the South and of its women writers.

List of writers

THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH

Eliza Lucas Pinckney

Eliza Wilkinson

Anne Newport Royall

Caroline Howard Gilman

Fanny Kemble

Susan Petigru King Bowen

Harriet Jacobs

Frances E. W. Harper

Sarah Grimké

THE CIVIL WAR SOUTH

Mary Boykin Chesnut

Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

Elizabeth Keckley

Margaret Junkin Preston

THE POSTBELLUM SOUTH

Katherine McDowell

Mary Noailles Murfree

Grace King

Kate Chopin

Julia Mood Peterkin

Alice Dunbar-Nelson

THE MODERN SOUTH

Caroline Gordon

Evelyn Scott

Katherine Anne Porter

Zora Neale Hurston

Carson McCullers

Flannery O’Connor

THE CONTEMPORARY SOUTHEudora Welty

Margaret Walker

Doris Betts

Sonia Sanchez

Mab Segrest

Bobbie Ann Mason

Alice Walker

Ellen Gilchrist

Leigh Allison Wilson

  Mary Louise Weaks is associate professor and chair of the Department of English at Rockford College in Illinois.  She is the coeditor of <i>Talking with Robert Penn Warren</i> and author of articles, interviews, and reviews published in <i>The Southern Review, Mississippi Quarterly, </i> and<i> Atlanta Historical Journal. </i>  Carolyn Perry is assistant professor of English and director of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.  She is the coeditor of <i>The Dolphin Reader.</i>