Caldwell, Erskine [Preston] (1903–87), born in Georgia, after study at the University of Virginia published two novelettes in 1930,
The Bastard and
Poor Fool, but first won fame with
Tobacco Road (1932), dramatized by Jack Kirkland. Like his next novel,
God's Little Acre (1933), it showed a rich sense of folk humor, indignation at social inequities, and a lusty bawdiness. One or more of these elements is seen in later novels, including
Journeyman (1935);
Trouble in July (1940), about race hatred in the South;
Tragic Ground (1944), about a Georgia farmer stranded in a war‐boom town;
House in the Uplands (1946);
The Sure Hand of God (1947), about a small‐town woman's search for a man for herself and a husband for her daughter;
This Very Earth (1948);
A Place Called Estherville (1949), about black‐white relations in a small Southern town;
Episode in Palmetto (1950), about a young schoolteacher in a similar town;
Gretta (1955), a portrait of a nymphomaniac;
Claudelle Inglish (1958); and
Jenny By Nature (1961), set in a small‐town boardinghouse in Georgia. Other novels include
All Night Long (1942), about guerrilla fighting in Russia;
A Lamp for Nightfall (1952), set in Maine;
Love and Money (1954), satirically portraying a best‐selling author;
Sometimes Island (1968), about friendships and conflicts of whites and blacks on a fishing trip;
The Weather Shelter (1969), set in a Tennessee town; and
Annette (1973), a portrait of a kindergarten teacher. Caldwell is considered to be best in the writing of short stories, and his many collections include
American Earth (1931),
We Are the Living (1933),
Kneel to the Rising Sun (1935),
Southways (1938),
Jackpot (1940),
The Courting of Susie Brown (1952),
Gulf Coast Stories (1956), and
When You Think of Me (1959). His short stories and novels have been enormously popular in paperback reprints, but since the 1930s little critical attention has been given to Caldwell's constant succession of newly published fiction. Other works include
Some American People (1935), vignettes of U.S. life;
Call It Experience (1951), about the art of writing;
Around About America (1964), light essays treating his travels through the U.S., a subject continued in
Afternoons in Mid‐America (1976);
In Search of Bisco (1965), about his attempt to find a black man who was his boyhood chum; and
Deep South (1968), an informal account of religion in his native region.
With All My Might (1989) is a posthumously published autobiography.
