In the 1949 classic Killers of the Dream, Lillian Smith described three racial "ghosts" haunting the mind of the white South: the black woman with whom the white man often had sexual relations, the rejected child from a mixed-race coupling, and the black mammy whom the white southern child first loves but then must reject. In this groundbreaking work, Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., extends Smith's work by adding a fourth "ghost" lurking in the psyche of the white South -- the specter of European Fascism. He explores how southern writers of the 1930s and 1940s responded to Fascism, and most tellingly to the suggestion that the racial politics of Nazi Germany had a special, problematic relevance to the South and its segregated social system. As Brinkmeyer shows, nearly all white southern writers in these decades felt impelled to deal with this specter and with the implications for southern identity of the issues raised by Nazism and Fascism. Their responses varied widely, ranging from repression and denial to the repulsion of self-recognition. With penetrating insight, Brinkmeyer examines the work of writers who contemplated the connection between the authoritarianism and racial politics of Nazi Germany and southern culture. He shows how white southern writers -- both those writing cultural criticism and those writing imaginative literature -- turned to Fascist Europe for images, analogies, and metaphors for representing and understanding the conflict between traditional and modern cultures that they were witnessing in Dixie. Brinkmeyer considers the works of a wide range of authors of varying political stripes: the Nashville Agrarians, W. J. Cash, Lillian Smith, William Alexander Percy, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, Robert Penn Warren, and Lillian Hellman. He argues persuasively that by engaging in their works the vital contemporary debates about totalitarianism and democracy, these writers reconfigured their understanding not only of the South but also of themselves as southerners, and of the nature and significance of their art. The magnum opus of a distinguished scholar, The Fourth Ghost offers a stunning reassessment of the cultural and political orientation of southern literature by examining a major and heretofore unexplored influence on its development.

We love ghost stories here at Wildside Press. If you've read the first 3 volumes in the Ghost Story MEGAPACKTM series, plus The Macabre MEGAPACKTM series, you’re pretty well caught up with the classic supernatural fiction we've been reading lately. Don't worry, though -- we'll keep digging for more classic horror tales! Included in this volume are: THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS, by Amelia B. Edwards THREE SPANISH LADIES, by Walter E Marconette BRICKETT BOTTOM, by Amyas Northcote ACROSS THE GULF, by Henry S. Whitehead THE NIGHT CALL, by Henry van Dyke HIS UNQUIET GHOST, by Mary Noailles Murfree THE DREAM-GOWN OF THE JAPANESE AMBASSADOR, by Brander Matthews THE MAN IN THE MIRROR, by Lillian B. Hunt HIS DAY BACK, by Jack Brant MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY, by Rudyard Kipling THE LONG CHAMBER, by Olivia Howard Dunbar THE PAST, by Ellen Glasgow MISS TEMPY'S WATCHERS, by Sarah Orne Jewett THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN, by Charles Dickens THE BULLY OF BROCAS COURT, by Arthur Conan Doyle THE SPIRAL STONE, by Arthur Willis Colton THE GHOST OF THE BLUE CHAMBER, by Jerome K. Jerome THE MINIATURE, by J. Y. Akerman TO LET, by B. M. Croker THE FOREIGNER, by Sarah Orne Jewett THE STONEGROUND GHOST TALES, by E. G. Swain THEY THAT MOURN, by Juliet Wilbor Tompkins GREEN BRANCHES, by Fiona Macleod THE WERE-WOLF, by H. B. Marryatt THE GHOST AT POINT OF ROCKS, by Frank H. Spearman If you enjoy this ebook, search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the 170+ entries in the MEGAPACKTM series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!

Aspiring to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school's track team, gifted runner Ghost finds his goal challenged by a tragic past with a violent father.

In the 1949 classic Killers of the Dream, Lillian Smith described three racial "ghosts" haunting the mind of the white South: the black woman with whom the white man often had sexual relations, the rejected child from a mixed-race coupling, and the black mammy whom the white southern child first loves but then must reject. In this groundbreaking work, Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., extends Smith's work by adding a fourth "ghost" lurking in the psyche of the white South -- the specter of European Fascism. He explores how southern writers of the 1930s and 1940s responded to Fascism, and most tellingly to the suggestion that the racial politics of Nazi Germany had a special, problematic relevance to the South and its segregated social system. As Brinkmeyer shows, nearly all white southern writers in these decades felt impelled to deal with this specter and with the implications for southern identity of the issues raised by Nazism and Fascism. Their responses varied widely, ranging from repression and denial to the repulsion of self-recognition. With penetrating insight, Brinkmeyer examines the work of writers who contemplated the connection between the authoritarianism and racial politics of Nazi Germany and southern culture. He shows how white southern writers -- both those writing cultural criticism and those writing imaginative literature -- turned to Fascist Europe for images, analogies, and metaphors for representing and understanding the conflict between traditional and modern cultures that they were witnessing in Dixie. Brinkmeyer considers the works of a wide range of authors of varying political stripes: the Nashville Agrarians, W. J. Cash, Lillian Smith, William Alexander Percy, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers, Robert Penn Warren, and Lillian Hellman. He argues persuasively that by engaging in their works the vital contemporary debates about totalitarianism and democracy, these writers reconfigured their understanding not only of the South but also of themselves as southerners, and of the nature and significance of their art. The magnum opus of a distinguished scholar, The Fourth Ghost offers a stunning reassessment of the cultural and political orientation of southern literature by examining a major and heretofore unexplored influence on its development.