A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American South

At the beginning of The South Through Other Eyes, one of the chapters in this Companion, Helen Taylor writes that “(T)he South is possibly the most feted, demonised, and scrutinized region of the USA”. Another sentence, frequently quoted or alluded to in the book, is H.L. Mencken's blunt statement of 1917 that the “vast region south of the Potomac […] is as sterile, artistically, intellectually, culturally as the Sahara desert”. But the 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...