The Mississippi Quarterly

First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.

Recipient of the 2018 Special Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and Recipient of a 2018 Heritage Award for Education from the Mississippi Heritage Trust The perfect book for every Mississippian who cares about the state, this is a mammoth collaboration in which thirty subject editors suggested topics, over seven hundred scholars wrote entries, and countless individuals made suggestions. The volume will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home. The book will be especially helpful to students, teachers, and scholars researching, writing about, or otherwise discovering the state, past and present. The volume contains entries on every county, every governor, and numerous musicians, writers, artists, and activists. Each entry provides an authoritative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. The Mississippi Encyclopedia also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports, and visual art. It includes solid, clear information in a single volume, offering with clarity and scholarship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else. This book also includes many surprises readers can only find by browsing.

One of the greatest American dramatists of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams is known for his sensitive characterizations, poetic yet realistic writing, ironic humor, and depiction, of harsh realties in human relationship. His work is frequently included in high school and college curricula, and his plays are continually produced. Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams includes entries on all of Williams's major and minor works, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, a novel, a collection of short stories, two poetry collections, and personal essays; places and events related to his works; major figures in his life; his literary influences; and issues in Williams scholarship and criticism. Appendixes include a complete list of Williams's works; a list of research libraries with significant Williams holdings; and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

This invaluable volume, which has been republished to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of Faulkner's birth, contains some of the greatest short fiction by a writer who defined the course of American literature. Its forty-five stories fall into three categories: those not included in Faulkner's earlier collections; previously unpublished short fiction; and stories that were later expanded into such novels as The Unvanquished, The Hamlet, and Go Down, Moses. With its Introduction and extensive notes by the biographer Joseph Blotner, Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner is an essential addition to its author's canon--as well as a book of some of the most haunting, harrowing, and atmospheric short fiction written in the twentieth century.