Caroline Gordon visited France twice during the twenties and thirties, in 1928-1929 and again in 1932-1933. She wrote much of her first two novels while living abroad, and she and her husband, poet Allen Tate, took an active part in the social and intellectual life of the American expatriate community in Paris. Unlike many other Americans living in Paris, however, Gordon, in her first novels, seems to have been affected little by Parisian life. Her early fiction is influenced more by her devotion to her native South, its history, and its people than by the avant-garde writers with whom she associated. It was not until much later in her career that she began to draw on events and characters from her stay in France.

Gordon was born in Todd County, Kentucky, to Nancy Meriwether and James Morris Gordon. She received her early education at a boys' school run...