A vivid imagination, a knack for depicting characters he met during his travels, and the proverbial gift of gab--these were the talents that made Opie Read widely known at the turn of the century, but his popularity was too ephemeral to last even to the end of his own life. When he died in 1939, few remembered that he had been a pioneer in the newspaper business, had established the Arkansaw Traveler, had traveled coast to coast entertaining audiences with his droll anecdotes and character sketches, and had authored over fifty books.

If ever a writer was influenced by his native territory, Opie Read was, for the hillbilly sketches, jokes, and stories in the Arkansaw Traveler; the humor in his lectures; and the characters and plots in his novels were lifted, with few exceptions, straight from his Southern background. Opie Pope Read was born 22 December 1852 in Nashville, Tennessee, the...