Southern Selves

From Mark Twain and Eudora Welty to Maya Angelou and Kaye Gibbons--A Collection of Autobiographical Writing

By: James Watkins

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Paperback | 28 July 1998 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

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402 Pages

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20.5 x 13.1 x 2.3

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The memoirist seek to capture not just a self but an entire world, and in this marvelous anthology thirty-one of the South's finest writers-writers like Kaye Gibbons and Reynolds Price, Eudora Welty and Harry Crews, Richard Wright and Dorothy Allison-make their intensely personal contributions to a vibrant collective picture of southern life.

In the hands of these superb artists, the South's rich tradition of storytelling is brilliantly revealed. Whether slave or master, intellectual or "redneck," each voice in this moving and unforgettable collection is proof that southern literature richly deserves its reputation for irreverent humor, exquisite language, a feeling for place, and an undying, often heartbreaking sense of the past.

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Introduction
from A Death in the Family	p. 3
from Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature	p. 9
from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	p. 15
from On Fire	p. 20
from Brother to a Dragonfly	p. 26
from A Childhood: The Biography of a Place	p. 41
from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself	p. 57
"The First Grade, Jesus, and the Hollyberry Family"	p. 70
from Witness to Sorrow: The Antebellum Autobiography of William J. Grayson	p. 83
from Dust Tracks on a Road	p. 93
from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl	p. 110
from A Slaveholder's Daughter	p. 124
from Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady	p. 132
from The Making of a Southerner	p. 145
from The South and the Southerner	p. 158
from Keeper of the Moon: A Southern Boyhood	p. 170
from Coming of Age in Mississippi	p. 179
from North Toward Home	p. 189
from Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family	p. 203
from Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son	p. 224
from Clear Pictures: First Loves, First Guides	p. 237
from Background in Tennessee	p. 255
from Killers of the Dream	p. 264
from Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored	p. 280
from Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War	p. 295
"The Private History of a Campaign that Failed"	p. 303
from Portrait of a Father	p. 325
from Up from Slavery	p. 334
from "Co. Aytch": A Side Show of the Big Show	p. 343
from One Writer's Beginnings	p. 352
from Black Boy (American Hunger)	p. 366
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Southern Selves

From Mark Twain and Eudora Welty to Maya Angelou and Kaye Gibbons--A Collection of Autobiographical Writing

At a Glance

Paperback

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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