John Peale Bishop's reputation as a writer does not rest upon his works of fiction. His modest output of poetry and the appearance of his essays and reviews in the leading literary periodicals of the 1920s and 1930s, combined with his friendships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, Archibald MacLeish, and Allen Tate, have established him as an interesting but decidedly minor author. Still, Bishop's roots as a Southerner are most apparent in his fiction, which, while perhaps not as distinguished as his verse and criticism, deserves more attention than it has been given.

Born in Charles Town, West Virginia, to a Southern mother and a father whose family had moved to Charles Town from New England after the Civil War, John Peale Bishop grew up in an environment where the arts were highly valued. His father taught him to paint, and he developed an early interest in...