Despite Flannery O'Connor's brief life, her work, comprising novels, short stories, essays, and articles, has had a great impact on American literature and to some extent popular culture, of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her writing has become well loved, well read, and often studied. This book reprints complete book reviews and excerpts from review essays on the works of Flannery O'Connor that appeared in newspapers and periodicals during the author's writing life (1945-64) and after her early death. The more than four hundred edited reviews are prefaced with a substantial Introduction that situates O'Connor within the critical milieu of post-war American letters and Southern literary tradition, and provides an overview of contemporary critical responses to her collected stories, novels, and occasional pieces. An important resource for scholars of O'Connor and of Southern literature generally, this volume reveals much about her early reception and the continuing relevance of her work.
R. NEIL SCOTT is the author of three books on the noted Southern American author, Flannery O'Connor:
** An Annotated Reference Guide to Criticism (Timberlane Books, 2002) -- Selected by CHOICE as "Outstanding Academic Title for 2002"
** With Val Nye (College of Santa Fe), Postmarked Milledgeville: A Guide to Flannery O'Connor's Correspondence in Libraries and Archives (GC&SU, 2002)
** With Irwin Streight (Royal Military College of Canada), Flannery O'Connor: The Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Scott received his BA in English from the University of South Florida, his MBA from Stetson University and his M.S.L.S. from Florida State. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, his academic library career has been something of a tour of the South -- Instructor and Public Services Librarian at William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi (1976-80); Assistant, then Associate Professor and Head of Reference Services at Stetson University in Deland, Florida (1980-86); a one year stint as Management Consultant with KPMG Peat Marwick on K Street in Washington, DC (1987-88); then, 16 years as Associate, then full Professor and Coordinator for Information Services at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia (1988-2004). Since 2004 he has served as Associate, then full Professor & User Services Librarian at Middle Tennessee State University where he lives with his wife, Sheila, and son, David, in beautiful, historic Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Between reference questions, teaching library research classes and writing articles and book reviews, Scott is presently: unravelling the mystery of the origin of the mummy in O'Connor's Wise Blood for a future article in Shenandoah; shopping a book manuscript around to publishers for his latest book (on the sinking of the HMS Otranto in October, 1918); and, is often seen walking his Siberian Huskey ("He who must be walked") "Max" all over the nearby Stones River National Battlefield.
