Caldwell was educated at Erskine College, although he did not receive a degree. During his youth, he had traveled throughout the South with his father, a Presbyterian minister. This experience would form the foundation for much of his later work. In 1929, he published his first book, Bastard, which was banned almost immediately. During the 1930's he managed a bookstore in Maine with his first wife and it was at this time that he produced his two most famous, and controversial, works; Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre. The latter caused much controversy and ended in Caldwell's arrest - so much for free speech in America - and subsequent law suit by him for unlawful arrest. In 1939, he married the photographer Margaret Bourke-White, but was divorced three years later. During World War II, Caldwell spent time in the Ukraine as a foreign correspondent. After the war, he settled in San Francisco. He continued to write until his death from lung cancer in 1987. His other works include Journeyman (1935), You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), Trouble in July (1940), All Night Long (1942), Georgia Boy (1943), A House in the Uplands (1946), A Place Called Estherville (1949), Call It Experience (1951), Jenny By Nature (1951), The Last Night of Summer (1963), Annette (1973) and his autobiography, With All My Might (1987). |
