From slave narratives to the Civil War, and from country music to Southern sport, this Companion is the definitive guide to the literature and culture of the American South.

• Includes discussion of the visual arts, music, society, history, and politics in the region
• Combines treatment of major literary works and historical events with a survey of broader themes, movements and issues
• Explores the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Huston, Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, as well as those - black and white, male and female - who are writing now
• Co-edited by the esteemed scholar Richard Gray, author of the acclaimed volume, A History of American Literature (Blackwell, 2003)

About the Author
Richard Gray is Professor in the Department of Literature at the University of Essex. His books include The Literature of Memory: Modern Writers of the American South, Writing the South: Ideas of an American Region (which won the C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature), American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, The Life of William Faulkner: A Critical Biography, Southern Aberrations: Writers of the American South and the Problems of Regionalism, and A History of American Literature. He is also editor of a number of collections and anthologies, and a regular reviewer for various newspapers and journals, including the Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Review. He is the first specialist in American literature to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Owen Robinson is Lecturer in American Literature at the University of Essex. He is the author of several articles on the novels of William Faulkner, and is editing A Routledge Guide to Light in August. He is currently working on writing centred on New Orleans, and on reader-writer relations in African American literature.

Reviews
A CHOICE 'OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE'

"The latest volume in Blackwell's "Companions to Literature and Culture" series features 33 brief essays that run the gamut of the Southern experience, from the Jamestown settlers to the contemporary era...Like Blackwell guides, the quality of the essays is high, and the authors cover as many points as possible within the space limits given them. Highly recommended. All academic and public libraries."
Choice

"[T]he many contributors, British and American, to this splendid compendium of fact and opinion demonstrate the rich variety of literature and music that has emanated from the South in the past 150 years [...] The Companion is methodical in its overall structure and is comprehensive, informative and clearly written throughout. Each chapter has extensive lists of references and further reading and the index is full and accurate. This is a work that will remain a vital source for students of the subject and that can be profitably used by readers in general."
Reference Reviews

Book Information
ISBN 9781405163699
Author Richard Gray
Format Paperback
Page Count 666
Imprint Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 1134g
Dimensions(mm) 246mm * 173mm * 36mm