Erskine Caldwell (1903–1987)
Author of Tobacco Road
About the Author
Erskine Caldwell has been called one of the most banned and censored authors in the United States. The son of a traveling minister, born in White Oak, Georgia in 1903, Caldwell received little formal education, as a young man, Caldwell took odd jobs and worked in the Southern states. He attended show more briefly Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina, and the Universities of Virginia and Pennsylvania for some semesters. Yet he became a prolific writer whose novels explore the seamy side of life in the American South. At the age of eighteen he went on a gun-running boat to South America, he played professional football and worked as mill-hand, cotton-picker, and in other such occupations. For a time Caldwell was a cub reporter on the Atlanta Journal. In the 1920s Caldwell moved to Maine to devote himself to writing. After several Spartan years, he had three stories accepted for publication. In 1930 Caldwell destroyed all his unpublished work from previous years. 'Country Full of Swedes' was published in the Yale Review, and it received $1,000 award from the journal in 1933. American Earth, a collection of short stories about petty passions and little lecheries, was published in 1931. Some of the stories had first appeared in such magazines as The American Caravan, Blues, Frankfurter Zeitung, Front, The Hound and Horn, Nativity, Pagany, Scribner's Magazine, This Quarter, and transition. The title of one of his novels Tobacco Road (1932) became slang for poverty and degeneracy. The book was made into both a movie (1941) and a long-running Broadway show (1933-1941). Other novels, some of which were made into later films, include The Bastard (1929), Poor Fool (1930), and God's Little Acre (1933). By the late 1940's, Caldwell had sold more books than any writer in the nation's history. Caldwell became a reporter for the Atlanta Journal in 1925, worked as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and was a newspaper correspondent in Mexico, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Russia and China. In 1984, Caldwell was elected, along with Norman Mailer, to the fifty-chair body of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Caldwell is the author of 25 novels, 150 short stories and 12 nonfiction books. He died in Paradise Valley, Arizona on April 11, 1987. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Carl Van Vechten
Works by Erskine Caldwell
Tobacco Road, God's Little Acre, and Place Called Estherville: Three Classic Novels (2017) 19 copies
Stories of Life, North & South: Selections from the Best Short Stories of Erskine Caldwell (1983) 9 copies
Il fiume caldo 5 copies
Georgia Boy and other stories 4 copies
Three by Caldwell: Tobacco road; Georgia boy; The sure hand of God; three great novels of the South 3 copies
Muerte lenta 3 copies
Man and Woman 3 copies
Stories by Erskine Caldwell; twenty-four representative stories, selected and introduced with a critical foreword by… (1944) 3 copies
Tagasi Lavinia juurde : [novellid] 3 copies
GOD'S LITTLE ACRE Modern Library #51 2 copies
L'ospite (in 38 racconti) 2 copies
Повести и рассказы 2 copies
A Small Day 2 copies
Writing in America 2 copies
38 racconti 1 copy
Onkel Henrys Liebesnest : Erzählungen. rororo 1677 ; 3499116774 Dt. von Hermann Stiehl, (1973) 1 copy
Tabáková cesta : román 1 copy
A Estrada do Tabaco - eBook 1 copy
Dom na wzgórzu 1 copy
MISAFIR 1 copy
Snälla vita herrar 1 copy
Antologia do Conto Moderno 1 copy
O Dedo de Deus 1 copy
Days Wooing & Other Stories 1 copy
American Earth 1 copy
Yasama Kavgasi 1 copy
Daughter 1 copy
Тихоня 1 copy
Noveller 1 copy
Jenny - rett og slett 1 copy
TUTUN YOLU 1 copy
KADER RUZGARI 1 copy
Ilha de Ver©Đo 1 copy
أرض الله الصغيرة 1 copy
Tämä maa 1 copy
Tepedeki Ev 1 copy
Kuyudaki Zenci 1 copy
SICAK NEHIR 1 copy
Dcht bij hui 1 copy
Vento sul fienile 1 copy
YAZ SONU 1 copy
Tupakkatie 1 copy
Warm Water 1 copy
The Journeyman 1 copy
Llamémosle experiencia 1 copy
Warm River 1 copy
Saturday Afternoon 1 copy
Handy [short story] 1 copy
Big Buck [short story] 1 copy
Snacker (in Il fiume caldo) 1 copy
Lavinia (in Il fiume caldo) 1 copy
Caldwell Erskine 1 copy
Zio Abe (in Il fiume caldo) 1 copy
La serva se n'è andata 1 copy
Il sogno (in 38 racconti) 1 copy
Martha Jean (in 38 racconti) 1 copy
Rachel (in 38 racconti) 1 copy
L'altra (in Il fiume caldo) 1 copy
Blue boy (in 38 racconti) 1 copy
Ziemia tragiczna 1 copy
Associated Works
The Best Short Stories of 1932 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1932) — Contributor — 13 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970 (1970) — Contributor — 13 copies
Georgia Stories: Major Georgia Short Fiction of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1992) — Contributor — 11 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1941 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1941) — Contributor — 10 copies
Amerikanische Kurzgeschichten (American Short Stories) (English and German Edition) (1956) — Contributor — 9 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1931 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1931) — Contributor — 7 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1940 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1940) — Contributor — 6 copies
Our lives : American labor stories — Contributor — 6 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story: from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970 (Volume I) (1970) — Contributor — 3 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1935 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1935) — Contributor — 2 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1933 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story — Contributor — 1 copy
Tobacco Road [1941 film] — Original novel — 1 copy
Direction, Volume 1, Number 2 (Jan-March 1935) — Contributor — 1 copy
America through the short story — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Caldwell, Erskine Preston
- Birthdate
- 1903-12-17
- Date of death
- 1987-04-11
- Burial location
- Scenic Hills Memorial Park, Ashland, Oregon, USA
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Country (for map)
- USA
- Birthplace
- White Oak, Georgia, USA
- Place of death
- Paradise Valley, Arizona, USA
- Places of residence
- White Oak, Georgia, USA
Prosperity, South Carolina, USA
Paradise Valley, Arizona, USA (death)
Moreland, Georgia, USA
San Francisco, California, USA
Wrens, Georgia, USA (show all 7)
Coweta County, Georgia, USA (birth) - Education
- Erskine College
University of Virginia - Occupations
- scriptwriter
editor
correspondent (newspaper)
novelist - Relationships
- Bourke-White, Margaret (ex-wife)
Caldwell, Dabney W. (son) - Awards and honors
- Georgia Writers Hall of Fame
American Academy of Arts and Letters ( [1984]) - Agent
- Maxwell Perkins (Charles Scribner's Sons)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 241
- Also by
- 57
- Members
- 4,299
- Popularity
- #5,844
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 96
- ISBNs
- 364
- Languages
- 14
- Favorited
- 7