Chronicles of the South: Garden of the Beaux Arts - Softcover

Wilson, Clyde N; Fleming, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0984370226 ISBN 13: 9780984370221

Publisher: Chronicles Press/The Rockford Institute, 2010

Synopsis

"Generally, the Southern writers allowed into 'mainstream' publications are either those who have made a career out of libeling the home folks or those too important to be ignored. Amazingly and refreshingly, Chronicles has not only treated Southern subjects abundantly and fairly but has welcomed many Southern writers who are not among the great but who have something to say and can say it well." So writes Clyde Wilson in his Introduction to Garden of the Beaux Arts, the first volume of Chronicles of the South, a collection of articles from Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Published in Rockford, Illinois, Chronicles has nevertheless been home to some of the best writing on the South over the last quarter of a century. Volume One features contributions by Southern novelists and poets, including Donald Davidson, Madison Smartt Bell, Fred Chappell, and Walker Percy; scholars such as M.E. Bradford, Ward Allen, Russell Kirk, J.O. Tate, Grady McWhiney, Tom Landess, Mark Royden Winchell, and Donald Livingston; and politicians and commentators, including U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan, syndicated columnist William Murchison, and Chronicles editors Aaron D. Wolf, Clyde Wilson, and Thomas Fleming.

About this title

From Booklist:

Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture has devoted more of its 50 monthly pages to the South than to any other region of the U.S. Reading this selection from its southern coverage, it’s hard to imagine any other journal matching, never mind besting, the northern Illinois–based publication at its self-appointed task. This is all very intelligent, informed, well-reasoned, often stylish, and frequently funny commentary on and explication of southern culture, past and present. The first volume’s contents consider writers, religion, southern character, the agrarian tradition, and matters of southern heritage (including the “new Jefferson myth” about “Tom and Sally and Joe and Fawn”). The second’s are essays on southern political thought, southern history from “The Late Unpleasantness” to “The Present Unpleasantness,” and, finally, southern peculiarities, such as a barbecue contest, “Race as in NASCAR Politics,” and dreaming that the South won. If it sounds like the best stuff comes last, everything that precedes it is well worth anyone’s attention, even if mostly far less jocular. Editor Wilson’s “Calhoun and Community,” Madison Smartt Bell’s interviews of novelists Andrew Lytle and George Garrett, Walker Percy’s “Physician as Novelist,” and Tom Landess’ “Outgrowing the Past: Eminent Domain Down South” are engaging pinnacles, and the same George Garrett’s two wild speeches and sociologist John Shelton Reed’s four contributions valleys of delight, within the range of this outstanding collection. --Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: Chronicles Press/The Rockford Institute
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0984370226
• ISBN 13: 9780984370221
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 292
• Editor: Wilson Clyde N