Most people think of Julia Peterkin's literary career as beginning with the publication, in September, 1924, of her first book, Green Thursday, a collection of twelve short stories and sketches of plantation life. Green Thursday did bring her both national and international attention and led to her becoming a novelist; but, in fact, for three years before the book appeared, she had been publishing starkly realistic short stories, sometimes grim and terrible in their anticipation of what has been called the Southern Gothic school, but tempered by an abiding compassion and by an understanding of the life of the South Carolina Gullah Negro. In such stories as "Over the River," "A Baby's Mouth," "Missy's Twins," and "The Foreman," she reached a level of achievement not often matched by her work in Green Thursday and her novels. Throughout her career as a novelist she continued to publish short fiction. And...