SOURCE: Anderson, Hilton. “Elizabeth Spencer's Two Italian Novellas.” Notes on Mississippi Writers 13, no. 1 (1981): 18-35.

In the following essay, Anderson contrasts Spencer's Italian novellas with the work of Henry James and surveys the critical reaction to Spencer's works.

When Elizabeth Spencer arrived in Italy in 1953 after receiving a Guggenheim fellowship, she was already author of two successful novels and working on her third one. All three of these novels were set in the South and dealt with Southern characters and somewhat peculiarly Southern situations; however, her living in Italy and her marriage to an Englishman removed her more or less permanently from the Southern setting which provided the material for her first three books. The five or so years she spent in Italy were the strongest influence on her next two books—The Light in the Piazza and Knights and Dragons.

Miss Spencer's first important work written under the...