In The Fugitive Legacy, Charlotte H. Beck demonstrates the strong influence of the Nashville Fugitives as teachers, editors, and mentors by examining the extraordinary impact on American letters of the critics, poets, and fiction writers whom they taught or sponsored. Previously, the proteges of John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Robert Penn Warren have received considerable scholarly attention only as individuals or in relation to small groups of close-knit writers within single literary genres. Now, for the first time, this far-ranging group of accomplished writers is united as part of a larger phenomenon, the Fugitive legacy, which has extended its influence far beyond the parameters of southern literature.

After surveying the editorial legacy of the major Fugitives, Beck treats the Fugitive legacy in criticism and the major impact of Cleanth Brooks and the New Criticism. She next examines the extensive influence of the Fugitives on the poetry of Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, and Robert Lowell. The largest section of the study deals with the Fugitive legacy in fiction, as Beck stresses the work of six writers -- Andrew Lytle, Katherine Anne Porter, Caroline Gordon, Eudora Welty, Peter Taylor, and Flannery O'Connor.

By treating the careers of these brilliant authors as a single chapter in literary history, Beck makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding of southern literature.