Fiction is celebrated in this first volume of a monumental anthology in four volumes collecting fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama written by authors from Mississippi, a state that has been called the cradle of storytellers. In a five-year project sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, Abbott made selections from the works of Faulkner, Welty, Williams, Percy, and Wright along with stories, essays, poems, and plays both by eminently known and emerging writers from Mississippi. Each selection expresses the theme of Mississippi youth and childhood or its relevance to the life of the writer.