SOURCE: Anderson, Hilton. Review of This Crooked Way, Fire in the Morning, and Ship Island and Other Stories, by Elizabeth Spencer. Journal of Mississippi History 31, no. 2 (May 1969): 139-41.

In the following review, Anderson deems Spencer as one of the finest contemporary writers.

Elizabeth Spencer is probably the finest Mississippi novelist writing today. Her first novel, Fire in the Morning, was one of the best novels of 1948; and her second, This Crooked Way (1952), was thought by some critics to be even better. Now both of these novels are back in print, along with her new collection of short stories, Ship Island and Other Stories.

The novels deal with life in Mississippi since the Civil War. Fire in the Morning tells of the conflict caused by the different values of two families in a Mississippi town. The Armstrongs, representing the old, clash with the Gerrards, representing the new and unscrupulous...