Katharine Sherwood Bonner McDowell, known to the writing community as Sherwood Bonner, was one of the first female news columnists, local colorists, dialect writers, and novelists of the post-Civil War South to gain literary recognition. McDowell's works, rich with historical ideologies and social detail, describe the complexities, conflicts, and tensions surrounding Southern Reconstruction in the decades following the Civil War. A comprehensive catalogue of McDowell's experimentation in various literary genres includes the novel and novella, compilations of short fiction, journalistic travel letters, celebrity profiles, a satire, autobiographical sketches, and poetry. This range of genres attests to McDowell's versatility, as well as her savvy in anticipating emerging literary trends. With the recent publication of McDowell's previously uncollected works in A Sherwood Bonner Sampler, 1869-1884: What a Bright, Educated, Witty, Lovely, Snappy Young Woman Can Say on a Variety of Topics (2000), edited by Anne Razey Gowdy, scholars have been afforded...