Born in Pulaski, Tennessee, John Crowe Ransom grew up in the many small towns near Nashville that his father, John J. Ransom, served as a minister of the Methodist church. Educated at home until he was ten, Ransom entered public school in October 1898. In June 1903 he was graduated at the head of his class from the Bowen School in Nashville, and in September he entered Vanderbilt University. After two years he withdrew from the university because he was unwilling to continue accepting financial support that his father could not afford. He taught school for two years--at Taylorsville, Mississippi, High School (1905-1906) and Haynes-McLean School in Lewisburg, Tennessee (1906-1907)--before reentering Vanderbilt, from which he was graduated number one in his class with a major in Greek and Latin and a minor in philosophy on 16 June 1909. He served as senior master and co-principal of Haynes-McLean School during the following...