Southern US fiction

Part of a long tradition of fiction and belles lettres in the US South since Edgar Allan Poe, often distinctively different from other US fiction. In the 20th century, a remarkable literary revival began, exemplified by the work of Ellen Glasgow and William Faulkner, dealing with the experience of a defeated agrarian region with proud traditions. Among 20th-century writers are Thomas Wolfe, Robert Penn Warren, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, William Styron, and Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind (1936). The Southern Gothic school includes Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers.

Writers of the 19th century include William Gilmore Simms (1806–1870), Joel Chandler Harris, and George Washington Cable (1844–1925).