SOURCE: Sewell, James W. “A Closing Summary.” In Southern Writers: Biographical and Critical Studies. Vol. 2, pp. 379-92. Nashville: Publishing House of the M. E. Church, 1903.

In the following essay, Sewell assesses the work of several Southern fiction writers of the late nineteenth century.

With the period of recuperation and readjustment which came soon after the Civil War, there began a sort of literary revival in the South. After Sidney Lanier had sung out his life amid barren and unappreciative surroundings, and Irwin Russell, almost unknown, had opened the rich vein of negro dialect and song, the world began to take notice of the possibilities of Southern literature. Soon Cable and Grace King began to tell of the Creoles of the quaint old city of New Orleans and of the flower-laden prairies and bayous of Louisiana; Page began his stories of the war, of the old-time negroes and their...