From the expeditions of de Soto in the sixteenth century to the celebrated work of such contemporary writers as Maya Angelou, Ellen Gilchrist, and Miller Williams, Arkansas has enjoyed a rich history of letters. These voices have been, and still are, as various as the state’s geography. Available in two volumes, this anthology of writers from various genres—travel writing, biography, history, poetry, fiction—reflects the state’s unity as well as its sometimes extreme cultural, political, and topographical diversity.
The writers represented here are primarily Arkansans writing about Arkansas. Writers who are not natives or residents, but who, nevertheless, have written about the state are included as well, as are those who have strong connections to the state but whose work does not.
Volume 1 covers the exploration of Arkansas and its rise to territory and statehood. It culminates in a generous selection of writers, including Henry Dumas, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, Pete Whetstone, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and John Gould Fletcher, all of whom contributed to Arkansas’s reputation as a literary state.
