Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit and periodical readerships

Round, Sian 2025. Lillian Smith's Strange Fruit and periodical readerships. Journal of American Studies 2025 , pp. 1-21. 10.1017/S0021875824000689

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Abstract

Recent scholarly interest in Lillian Smith and her controversial best-selling novel Strange Fruit (1944) has ignored the importance of the magazine she edited with her partner Paula Snelling, South Today (1936–45). After considering Smith and Snelling's cultivation of an ideal southern literature through their book reviews, this article reads the short stories Smith published in South Today, which functioned as early drafts of Strange Fruit. Tracing the significance of the magazine's readers, I argue that the process of editing a magazine shaped the structure and style of Smith's novel, considering what literary magazines can tell us about southern identity.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0021-8758
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	6 June 2025
Last Modified:	06 Jun 2025 10:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178625

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