About the Bibliography

The principal purpose of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature at its founding in 1967 was to create and provide the scholarly tools necessary to support an academic study of the writers of the American South. In that interest the SSSL endorsed the publication of A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Southern Literature (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969) under the editorship of Louis D. Rubin, Jr., and established a Bibliography Committee with Paschal Reeves as Chair to continue the collection of bibliography in an annual “Checklist of Scholarship on Southern Literature” published in the Mississippi Quarterly at Mississippi State University.

The annual checklists appeared in the spring issues of the journal from 1968 to 1988 when its size forced the Mississippi Quarterly to begin issuing the checklist as an annual supplement. The publication in print continuted through the list for 1997.

In 1975 James E. Kibler became chair of the Bibliography Committee and served until 1980 when George C. Longest was named to replace him. The first eight checklists were conflated, supplemented, and emended in Southern Literature 1968-1975: A Checklist of Scholarship (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1978) edited by Jerry T. Williams, who in 1975 became the general editor of the checklists. Following George Longest's retirement, the Bibliography Committee reorganized in 2004 under the leadership of Mary Weaks-Baxter, who now serves as chair.

Peter Scholing in spring 2003 designed and created the present database that incorporates all of the previous bibliography available. Based on Scholing’s design the collection of bibliography will continue under the Mississippi Quarterly’s administration in cooperation with the Bibliography Committee and the Executive Council of the SSSL.