Bücher der Reihe Library of Southern Civilization

A story of love, violence, and race set at the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in 1791, African American writer Arna Bontemps's Drums at Dusk immerses readers in the opulent and brutal - yet also very fragile - society of France's richest colony, Saint Domingue.

This story of the abduction of a free Negro adult from the North and his enslavement in the South--provides a sensational element which cannot be matched in any of the dozens of narratives written by former slaves. 'Think of it: For thirty years a man, wit all man's hopes, fears and aspirations--with a wife and children to call him by the endearing names of husband and father--with a home, humble it may be, but still a home...then for twelve years a thing, a chattel personal, classed with mules and horses....Oh! it is horrible. It chills the blood to think that such are.'

Born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, within the shelter of old traditions, aristocratic in the best sense, William Alexander Percy in his lifetime (1885-1942) was brought face to face with the convulsions of a changing world. Lanterns on the Levee is his memorial to the South of his youth and young manhood.

This journal records the Civil War experiences of a sensitive, well-educated, young southern woman. Kate Stone was twenty when the war began, living with her mother, brothers, and younger sister at Brokenburn, their plantation home in Louisiana. Without pretense and with almost photographic clarity, she portrays the South during its darkest hours.

First published in 1930, the essays in this manifesto constitute one of the outstanding cultural documents in the history of the South. In it, twelve southerners defended individualism against the trend of baseless conformity in an increasingly mechanised and dehumanised society.

Explains how the radical religiosity of both Flannery O'Connor's and Walker Percy's vision made them so valuable as southern fiction writers and social critics. Via their spiritual and philosophical concerns, these two authors bequeathed a postmodern South of shopping malls and interstates imbued with as much meaning as Appomattox or Yoknapatawpha.

The wife of South Carolina secessionist governor Francis W. Pickens, Lucy Holcombe Pickens, was one of the most famous women in the South. Rumour had it that she published a novel, "The Free Flag of Cuba" under a pseudonym. This text resurrects Holcombe's lost work.

Albion Tourgee published a succession of novels and stories which made him famous. Bricks Without Straw, one of his two best-selling novels, is not only a moving story but an important commentary on the Reconstruction process in the South. In his introduction, Profession Otto H. Olsen gives a comprehensive evaluation of the book and its author.

Two months before the Civil War broke out, Emma Holmes made the first entry in a diary that would eventually hold vivid firsthand accounts of several major historical events. In presenting her picture of the wartime South, Holmes discussed numerous military figures, the role of women in the war effort, and the religious and social life of the day.

First published in 1864, Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice was the third novel of Augusta Jane Evans, one of the leading women writers of nineteenth-century domestic fiction. Long out of print and largely unavailable until now, Macaria is a compelling narrative about women and war.

The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi, originally published in 1853, consists of twenty-six sketches and satires drawn from Joseph G. Baldwin's experiences as an attorney on the turbulent Mississippi and Alabama frontiers in the 1830s and 1840s. Like experiences, attempted to depict a lawless and colorful era in American history. Originally from Virginia, the author paints vivid and authentic portraits of shifty lawyers, unlettered judges, and inept prosecutors, as well as serious profiles of respected colleagues such as Seargent S. Prentiss. Even the narrator, we learn, is granted a license to practice law by a circuit judge who asks him "not a single legal question." One of the collection's most memorable characters is Ovid Bolus, whom Baldwin describes as a "natural liar, just as some horses are natural pacers, and some dogs natural setters." His adventures reflect Baldwin's fascination with the meaning of the law and the legal profession under the conditions that existed on the American frontier. James H. Justus' introduction places this new edition of The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi in its historical literary context. According to Justus, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet's Georgia Scenes, published in 1835, is the volume credited as the first to exploit the southern backwoods In the vernacular realism we now call the humor of the Old Southwest. Justus also notes that in the preface to his book, Baldwin indirectly acknowledges his familiarity with earlier writers, and one sketch, "Simon Suggs, JR.," specifically pays homage to Johnson Jones Hooper. The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi possesses enormous value for both literary scholars and historians. It remains a classic, not simply because it is sprightly social history, but because it is also an engrossing memoir by a man of uncommon subtlety of mind who projected his own sensibility into the record.

Originally published in 1832 and revised in 1851, Swallow Barn, John Pendleton Kennedy's novel of antebellum life on a tidewater Virginia plantation, was described by its author as "variously and interchangeably partaking of the complexion of a book of travels, a diary, a collection of letters, a drama, and a history."