About the Author

Elizabeth Spencer (1921–2019) is author of nine novels, seven collections of short stories, a memoir, and a play. Her novella The Light in the Piazza (1960) was adapted for the screen in 1962 and transformed into a Broadway musical of the same name in 2005. She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Sally Greene is an independent scholar who specializes in the literature of twentieth-century British and American women. She is editor of Virginia Woolf: Reading the Renaissance, and her essays have appeared in Twentieth-Century Literature, Studies in the Novel, Southern Quarterly, Mississippi Quarterly, Southern Cultures, the American Scholar, and elsewhere.

Reviews

Considering her writing attracted some of the nation's finest publishers, numerous literary awards and fellowships, and extensive scholarly attention over six decades, it may be preposterous to suggest that Spencer is insufficiently revered in her home state and region. And yet I cannot help but believe that she is edged out of certain literary conversations by the achievements of Miss Welty, among others. That being said, The Edward Tales earnes Elizabeth Spencer another space on the crowded shelf.--John Parrish Peede "Valley Voices"