In the following essay, Mixon argues that Caldwell's later works were less successful than his early writing because he failed to recognize major social changes in the American South.

In the following excerpt from his book-length study of Caldwell, Devlin assesses the language, imagery, themes, and other facets of the author's short fiction.

In the following interview, originally published in 1984, Caldwell discusses his life in the South, his early literary influences, and his opinions about censorship and racism.

In the essay below, Hoag examines the ways in which the pieces in Georgia Boy comprise a unified story-cycle.

In the following essay, MacDonald details Caldwell's use of repetition in his characters ' speeches, in descriptions of settings and events, and in the structures of his short stories.

Owen was an American poet, novelist, critic, and educator. In this essay, he closely studies The Sacrilege of Alan Kent within the context of Caldwell's fledgling writing career.

In the following essay, McDonald discusses the significance of the photograph “Three Women Eating” to the collection of photographs in You Have Seen Their Faces.

Comsa is a Romanian writer, educator, and critic specializing in American literature. In the essay below, Comsa surveys the critical response to Caldwell's stories, declaring: "With few exceptions, judgements passed on Caldwell [have been onesided, sectarian, subservient to fashion as well as blind to his art, his range and significance. " The critic then calls for a reappraisal of all Caldwell's work, particularly his short stones.]

In the excerpt below, Cook surveys the themes of Gulf Coast Stories and Certain Women, detecting a narrowing of the range of issues and concerns from Caldwell's earlier collections of stories.

Burke is one of the foremost American scholars—and perhaps the most controversial literary figure—of the twentieth century. His approach to literature combines pragmatism with aesthetics and ethical concerns. Burke regards language as symbolic action and perceives the critic's function to be the analysis and interpretation of the symbolic structures embedded in works of art. His eclecticism is demonstrated by his use of the multiple perspectives offered in the works of Sigmund Freud an...

[Caldwell's theme] is one of degeneracy—the reduction of the human being to the lowest possible levels of his experience. In appearance, at least, his rural characters bear no resemblance to the Jeffersonian yeoman whatsoever. Grotesques responding only to a basic physical urge, they represent an abstraction not merely from the human to the animal but from the complete animal to a single instinct…. Caldwell insists upon keeping his readers at a distance—on presenting his [charact...

Canby was an American educator, critic, biographer, and the co-founder and first editor of the Saturday Review. In the following essay, which was first published in 1944 as Canby's introduction to a collection of Caldwell's stories, the critic likens Caldwell to a sociologist for his detailed examinations of humanity in his short fiction.

In the excerpt below, Wade surveys Caldwell's early work in an effort to "assess the Caldwell virtues and to wonder whether they are virtues good enough and numerous enough to sustain for very long the impression that he is important. "

Collins was an American critic, educator, and editor, In the essay below, he accounts for Caldwell's great popularity by pointing to the sexual content of his stories, their element of social protest, and their humor.

In the following, Whipple generally praises the stories in American Earth but bemoans what he perceives to be the elitist influence of small literary journals on Caldwell. Cowley, on the other hand, defends the little magazines: "By publishing his work, the best and the worst of it, they have encouraged him to develop something original."

Peden is an American poet, novelist, and educator. In the following essay, he extols Caldwell's short stories as "important sociological documents, bleak testimony to the devastating effects of poverty upon human behavior."

In the following excerpt, which is taken from an interview with Caldwell at his home in Arizona in June, 1980, the author discusses various aspects of his writing process.

In the following review of The Complete Stories of Erskine Caldwell, Nichols includes the author's own recollections about the composition of such stories as "Country Full of Swedes" and "Kneel to the Rising Sun."

In this review, Du Bois considers Georgia Boy "an unalloyed delight" and declares that one "would have to go back to Huck Finn to find a more companionable storyteller" than William Stroup, the narrator of these linked stories.

In this review, Dempsey contends that Certain Women demonstrates a decline in Caldwell's talent.

In this review of Southways, Soskin detects a change in these stories from Caldwell's earlier work, observing a greater brevity and intensity: "he writes the bare, bedrock story hammered into an immediate situation as though he could not bear to write at greater length. "

Bode was an American critic, educator, and poet. In the excerpt below, he disparages Caldwell's artistry generally but judges his short stories superior to his novels: "the sagging architecture which weakens all his novels does not develop in the short stories. They are better for being brief."

In many of his stories Caldwell's style is so spare and so completely unadorned that the reader learns just how few of the traditional literary devices a writer can use and still create stories which are meaningful and effective. While the hallmark of Caldwell's prose style is simplicity, however, a careful investigation of the stories in such collections as American Earth, We are the Living, Kneel to the Rising Sun, Southways, Jackpot, The Complete Stories, and Georgia Boy shows that Caldwell...

Burnett was an American critic, journalist, and editor. In the following review of We Are the Living, he greatly admires Caldwell's ability to "push through to the core of feeling" in the stories in the collection.

In the review below, Strauss praises the authenticity of the pieces in We Are the living, declaring that "Caldwell's stories are as indigenous to the American soil as a corncob pipe or a Ford car. "

In the following excerpt, Korges discusses The Sacrilege of Alan Kent, considering it essential to understanding "Caldwell's full range and his place in contemporary literature. "

In the review of Southways below, Ferguson asserts that this collection of short stories is less imaginative but more mature than Caldwell's earlier efforts.

In the following review of The Sacrilege of Alan Kent, written at the time of the work's publication as a separate volume, Strauss finds it an interesting but "youthful and unsuccessful" experiment.

Mr. Erskine Caldwell's collection of stories "American Earth," is closer to [representing the simple American folk narrative] than any other book I know. To be sure, his field is limited—his first dozen sketches and incidents are entitled "Far South," his second twelve "Farthest East"—and he is so good a writer that the flavor of locality is strong in his work; but there is nothing necessarily local about the genre which he has chosen. It could ...

Like many travel books, Erskine Caldwell's "Afternoons In Mid-America" is fragmentary. Since neither plots nor characters generally hold travel books together, the point of unity is usually the author's observing eye. But Caldwell's eyes never stay on one thing long enough to connect it with anything else. "Afternoons In Mid-America" rushes off in all directions at once, leaving the reader dizzy and, depending on temperament, annoyed or amused. "Aftern...

Mr. Caldwell is a literary child of the "occult" magazines…. What I dissent from in Mr. Whipple's review [see excerpt above] is that he attacks precisely the portion of "American Earth" in which the author's original qualities are most evident. I refer, of course, to the "disconnected bits of fact and phantasy" which compose the third section of the book. Here Mr. Caldwell achieves a sort of violent poetry, simple, romantic, arbitrary and effect...