Southern Odyssey contains the best of Sherwood Anderson's writings about the region where he spent the last sixteen years of his life. In more than forty selections of journalism and fiction, Anderson explores the people and problems of the South.

The pieces collected here present Anderson's perceptive vision of the South, combining his love for the region with the fresh observations of an outsider. His work reflects a range of issues that engaged all southerners at a crucial time in their history—the Great Depression, the influence of the New Deal, the painful transition from agriculture to mechanization, the struggle of labor to unionize, and the elemental divisions of race—always with an eye toward the human side of things.

Anderson's impressions and convictions concerning his southern experience encompassed more than its troubles, however. He also wrote of the splendor of a Shenandoah spring and the strength of character of the native people. Southern Odyssey is more than a personal record—it is a gallery of southern portraits, drawn in the style that distinguishes Anderson's prose at its best.