Erskine Caldwell

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  • Arnold, Edwin T. Conversations with Erskine Caldwell. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988, 312 p. (Collection of over thirty previously published interviews, covering a fifty-year period.)
  • Arnold, Edwin T. Erskine Caldwell Reconsidered. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990, 115 p. (Anthology of essays by such Caldwell scholars as Harvey L. Klevar, Sylvia J. Cook, and Ronald Wesley Hoag.)
  • Benedict, Stewart H. "Gallic Light on Erskine Caldwell." South Atlantic Quarterly LX, No. 4 (Autumn 1961): 390-97. (Summarizes French opinions of Caldwell's writing. Of the author's short fiction, Benedict states: "Such short story collections as American Earth, We Are the Living, Southways, and Kneel to the Rising Sun justify including Caldwell among the best short story writers in the United States. Some of his stories are, in fact, perfect.")
  • Brady, Upton Birnie. Introduction to Midsummer Passion & Other Tales of Maine Cussedness by Erskine Caldwell, pp. vii-xiv. Camden, Maine: Yankee Books, 1990. (Discussion of Caldwell's short stories that are set in Maine and their relation to his better-known Southern fiction.)
  • Caldwell, Erskine. "The Art, Craft, and Personality of Writing." The Texas Quarterly VII, No. 1 (Spring 1964): 37-43. (Comments on "the universally human desire to be a storyteller and express one's self in print.")
  • Cantwell, Robert. Introduction to The Humorous Side of Erskine Caldwell: An Anthology, edited by Robert Cantwell, pp. ix-xxxiii. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1951. (Assesses Caldwell's use of religious, humorous, and biographical material in his fiction.)
  • Cargill, Oscar. "The Primitivists." In his Intellectual America: Ideas on the March, pp. 311-98. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941. (Includes a consideration of several of Caldwell's volumes of short stories and traces the influence of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Sherwood Anderson on Caldwell's work.)
  • Cook, Sylvia. "Erskine Caldwell and the Literary Left Wing." Pembroke Magazine, No. 11 (1979): 132-39. (Examines the political orientation of Caldwell's early work, including many of his short stories.)
  • Dempsey, David. "Caldwell's Two Worlds." The New York Times Book Review, February 17, 1952, p. 4. (Favorable review of The Courting of Susie Brown, finding many of the pieces in this collection "delightfully . . . absurd.")
  • Gray, James. "A Local Habitation: Erskine Caldwell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, John Steinbeck." In his On Second Thought, pp. 116-40. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1946. (Includes an assessment of Kneel to the Rising Sun, asserting that the title story is "one of the most painful and impressive I have ever read.")
  • Hicks, Granville. "One Side of Caldwell." The New York Times Book Review, June 10, 1951, pp. 8, 30. (Negative review of The Humorous Side of Erskine Caldwell. Hicks insists that many of the pieces in the volume "lack not only humor but any pretense of humor.")
  • Kelly, Richard J. "Enduring Flavor of Vintage Caldwell." Southwest Review 68, No. 4 (Autumn 1983): 407-09. (Positive evaluation of Stories of Life North & South, arguing that "the stories gathered here . . . might well prove this venerable author's most durable and rewarding legacy.")
  • Klevar, Harvey L. "Caldwell's Women." The Southern Quarterly XXVII, No. 3 (Spring 1989): 15-35. (Biographical and critical study of Caldwell's relationships with women and his depiction of females in his fiction.)
  • Klevar, Harvey L. Erskine Caldwell: A Biography. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1993, 483 p. (Thoroughly researched and documented consideration of the author.)
  • Lindberg, Stanley W. The Legacy of Erskine Caldwell. Atlanta: Georgia Humanities Council, 1989, 46 p. (Guidebook to the author. Lindberg includes coverage of Caldwell's life and works, selections from his writings, discussion questions, and sources for further reading.)
  • MacDonald, Scott. "An Evaluative Check-list of Erskine Caldwell's Short Fiction." Studies in Short Fiction 15, No. 1 (Winter 1978): 81-97. (Exhaustive, year-by-year listing of Caldwell's shorter works, including full bibliographic citations concerning their initial publication.)
  • MacDonald, Scott. Critical Essays on Erskine Caldwell. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1981, 400 p. (Comprehensive collection of reviews and analyses of all of Caldwell's work, from the earliest judgments to more recent studies.)
  • Miller, Dan B. The Journey from Tobacco Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, 459 p. (Recent, sympathetic biography of Caldwell.)
  • Renek, Morris. "Rediscovering Erskine Caldwell." The Nation 220, No. 24 (June 21, 1975): 758. (Considers "Saturday Afternoon" "a short story that belongs with the best of American fiction.")
  • Seaver, Edwin. Review of Jackpot. Direction 3, No. 7 (October 1940): 18. (Extols the stories in the collection, claiming that Caldwell's stories are "rooted in the American soil. They couldn't happen anywhere but America, and nobody else in America but Erskine Caldwell could write them.")
  • Sutton, William A. Black Like It Is/Was: Erskine Caldwell's Treatment of Racial Themes. Metuchen, N. J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1974, 164 p. (Analysis of Caldwell's depiction of African Americans in his works. Sutton argues: "There is no doubt that Caldwell wished to call the enormity of white racism and black misery to the attention of society, believing that when readers knew the truth their protest would join his own.")

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Caldwell, Erskine (Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism)
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