Evelyn Scott: Recovering a Lost Modernist

Evelyn Scott was a significant literary figure in American letters of the 1920s and 1930s, an important contributor in the experimental forms and techniques of the modernist movement. She wrote and published in many genres — the novel, short fiction, poetry, memoir, criticism, and drama. Since that time, Scott’s work has been forgotten by most readers and critics, and her reputation as an important writer of her day has been obscured.This collection, which features an introduction and thirteen critical essays, is the first volume to focus on Scott’s work rather than her intriguing yet troubled life and initiates a long-needed examination of Scott’s innovations in fiction, memoir, and other genres. The various essays take diverse critical approaches to Scott’s canon, including her best-known works — Escapade and The Wave — and explore her views on topics such as women, politics, religion, art, and the South.

The contributors examine Scott in terms of other writers of her time, such as Katherine Anne Porter, Kay Boyle, Waldo Frank, Allen Tate, and William Faulkner; they place her into the larger context of American writing of the early twentieth century and illustrate the value of her work to the studies of such fields as modernist literature, women’s writing, and southern literature. Additionally, the volume contains the first critical studies of Scott’s drama, poetry, short stories, literary criticism, and unpublished novel, “Before Cock Crow”.

The volume is both an introduction to Scott’s work and a valuable tool for those already familiar with her writing.