A realist in the manner of William Dean Howells, Edith Wharton, and such French authors as Guy de Maupassant, Grace King never attained the stature of these literary giants. But it is often the special gift of a minor author to reveal the particular and the peculiar in a way that a major author cannot, and at this King was unparalleled. She spoke with artistry and feeling for a class of people who were all but voiceless, the disenfranchised and penniless women, black and white, who lived in the South after the Civil War. Ignored for decades, King is now benefiting from the recent upsurge of interest in folklore, regional literature, and women's studies. As traditional literary hierarchies are challenged by new critical approaches, King, like other minor writers, is being examined anew, and her contribution is at last receiving its true valuation.

King's subject is one of...