SOURCE: Grimshaw, James A., Jr. “Early Fiction.” In Understanding Robert Penn Warren, pp. 64-71. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

In the following excerpt, Grimshaw explores central themes shared by five of Warren's short stories, including “Blackberry Winter.”

Warren's canon of short stories is relatively small, containing only about sixteen texts if one excludes the vignettes written for his high school literary publication. Several of these short stories are incorporated into his longer fiction. For example, Warren's short story “Prime Leaf” (1931) was expanded into Night Rider. Recognizing that his talent lay in novels and poetry rather than short stories, Warren did not devote much of his creative energy to writing short fiction. Indeed, his last published short story, “Invitation to a Dance,” appeared in February, 1949, two years after his only collection of short stories, The Circus in the Attic and Other Stories, appeared. In his biography of Warren...