Southern Literature Resources
in the Special Collections of Lupton Library

The Special Collections of Lupton Library contains several collections and items that relate to Southern Literature, from 19th century works such as Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (left) and Kate Chopin's Bayou Folk (right) to present works.

The Special Collections also has a series of letters written in the 1930s by members of a literary group that became known as the Agrarians. An extension of an earlier group from the 1920s known as the Fugitives, they were professors at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and had published a magazine from 1922-1925 called The Fugitive, which gave their movement a voice and brought on an aestheticism that became known as the Southern Renaissance. John Crowe Ransom and Donald Davidson were two of their main members. This group grew with Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Merrill Moore, John Gould Fletcher, Cleanth Brooks, Randall Jarrell, Stark Young, Andrew Lytle, and John Donald Wade joining their movement.

The Special Collections also holds books and material by and about novelist Caroline Gordon (1895-1981), wife of writer Allen Tate. Included are signed, first editions of Penhally (1931); Old Red and Other Stories (1961); The Malefactors (1956); Forest of the South (1945); Women on the Porch (1944); Garden of Adonis (1937); and Aleck Maury: Sportsman (1934). Caroline Gordon was born and raised in Todd County, Kentucky, near Clarksville, Kentucky. She was educated at her father's school for boys in Clarksville. Gordon attended Bethany College, graduating in 1916.

During her life, Gordon's circle of acquaintances included some of the world's great writers: Ford Madox Ford, perhaps her greatest mentor, Robert Penn Warren, Andrew Lytle, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. Many Gordon scholars consider her to be in a class of feminists of the day, due to her bohemian lifestyle and the fact that she often published her works under her maiden name.

Her novels and short stories rely on subtle effect for their power, while her characters exude a calm, beguiling grace. Her writings found fans in many of the great Southern writers of the early to mid 1900s: Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Andrew Lytle, Robert Penn Warren, and John Crowe Ransom.

After graduating from Bethany College, Gordon went to Chattanooga and became a reporter for the Chattanooga Reporter. Her work on the paper mainly consisted of working on Society news. She left the newspaper in 1924. Upon her return home, she met Allen Tate. They were married on May 15, 1925. Living in Tennessee they became associated with the Fugitive poets, including John Crowe Ransom and Donald Davidson, who taught at Vanderbilt University. The marriage of Tate and Gordon was destined to be a rocky road that would cause Gordon much turmoil and eventually a nervous breakdown. Gordon and Tate moved back to Clarksville, Tennessee.

Ford Madox Ford took an interest in Gordon's work, and helped her finish her first novel, Penhally, published in 1931. By the mid 1940s, her marriage to Tate was ending. They divorced in 1945, remarried, and divorced again in 1959.

Though her life was distinguished by great travels and powerful acquaintances, Gordon mainly drew on her relationship to the South for her stories. She died in 1981 in Mexico, where she had been living the last several years of her life.

In addition to the above collections and resources, Lupton Library also houses a collection of the writings of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, as the Arlie Herron Collection of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, named after a long-time UTC English professor. This group of novelists, poets, historians, playwrights, and editors was formed in Chattanooga in 1987, and meets in Chattanooga every other year as part of the Conference on Southern Literature, sponsored by the Chattanooga Arts and Education Council. The books in the Arlie Herron Collection of the Fellowship of Southern Writers do not circulate but may be used in the library. Many of these titles are represented in the circulating collection of the library; many of the copies in the Arlie Herron Collection are signed, first editions.

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