The University Press of Mississippi was founded in 1970 and is supported by Mississippi's eight state universities. UPM publishes scholarly books of the highest distinction and books that interpret the South and its culture to the nation and the world. From its offices in Jackson, the University Press of Mississippi acquires, edits, distributes, and promotes more than eighty new books every year. Over the years, the Press has published more than 1000 titles and distributed more than 2,600,000 copies worldwide, each with the Mississippi imprint.
Tennessee Williams and the South
Words and pictures that show the South’s imprint on the life and works of the great playwright
Working the Field
Accounts from French Louisiana
Jennie Carter
A Black Journalist of the Early West
The first collection from an African American journalist writing for the San Francisco Elevator
Passage on the Underground Railroad
A photographer’s evocative interpretation of the history and places along the slave’s path to freedom
Legend of the Free State of Jones
Legend of the Free State of Jones was the first authoritative explanation of just what did happen in Jones County in 1864 to give rise to the legend and now to a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey.
Lewis Hine as Social Critic
A study of the great photographer as a progressive thinker and political activist
Mississippi Politics
The Struggle for Power, 1976-2008, Second Edition
The definitive work on the state’s recent political history, campaigns, legislative battles, and litigation, updated and expanded to reflect the profound consequences of the 2007 and 2008 elections on Mississippi
Writings of Frank Marshall Davis
A Voice of the Black Press
Columns and news pieces from a great American journalist
Horror Film
Creating and Marketing Fear
Essays on the rise of the horror film and on how moviemakers package and promote fright
Birds and Birding on the Mississippi Coast
The first book to focus attention on sighting the 357 species of birds known to inhabit the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Thomas Jefferson on Wine
A connoisseur’s compendium of a great American’s passion for fine wine
A Lost Heroine of the Confederacy
The Diaries and Letters of Belle Edmondson
This collection of exciting letters and diaries documents Belle Edmondson’s active role behind the scenes in the Civil War and reveals her to have been a courier, a gatherer of intelligence, and a smuggler of contraband on behalf of southern troops in west Tennessee.
The Catfish Book
A fact-filled, light-hearted book that tells everything everyone would wish to know about the South’s fish of choice
Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967
This first comprehensive compilation of Mississippi literary biographies; includes all of the state’s writers who wrote and published a work of at least 30 pages in length; featuring approximately 1500 authors
Layered Violence
The Detroit Rioters of 1943
A descriptive profile of the rioters in the bloody civil disorder that devastated sectors of Detroit in 1943.
Cradle and All
A Cultural and Psychoanalytic Study of Nursery Rhymes
A look into the rich yet bewildering meanings found in the literature of childhood
Scorpions of Medical Importance
An account of the many stinging arachnids that have medical impact
Archeology of Mississippi
A classic study of the archeological sites and artifacts of the prehistoric Indians who inhabited the lands that are now the state of Mississippi
Brierfield
Plantation Home of Jefferson Davis
The intriguing history of the home (and the family) from which Jefferson Davis was called to become the President of the Confederate States of America
Shaping Memories
Reflections of African American Women Writers
Lost Plantations of the South
An illustrated history of the grand southern plantation homes lost to war, disaster, neglect, and progress
The Essence of Herbs
An Environmental Guide to Herb Gardening
Fascinating lore, practical herb garden design, comprehensive guidance in cultivating and harvesting herbs
Conversations with Samuel R. Delany
Interviews with the author of Dhalgren; Babel-17; Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand; the Nevéryon cycle; and Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
The South and Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha
The Actual and the Apocryphal
Essays that explore how Faulkner shaped a region and how a region shaped the great writer and his fiction
Race and Family in the Colonial South
Mississippi
The WPA Guide to the Magnolia State
A classic picture of bygone days and foregone ways
Faulkner and Humor
Essays that seek the humorous streak in the Nobel Laureate’s output
Eudora Welty
Thirteen Essays
A collection of thirteen of the best essays drawn from the earlier work, Eudora Welty: Critical Essays
Great Spirits
Portraits of Life-Changing World Music Artists
Personal encounters with musical geniuses determined to change the world; includes pieces on Bob Marley, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nina Simone, Sun Ra, Augustus Pablo, the Neville Brothers, Yabby You, and Nadia Gamal
Romance and Rights
The Politics of Interracial Intimacy, 1945-1954
A study of the tensions between the private and public realms of interracial relationships
Not Just Child's Play
Emerging Tradition and the Lost Boys of Sudan
A study of one group of Sudanese refugees and their efforts to hold on to their traditions
Conversations with Bharati Mukherjee
Interviews with the Indian-American author of The Tiger's Daughter, Jasmine, The Holder of the World, and The Middleman and Other Stories (winner of the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award)
Waltz the Hall
A history and songbook of a once widespread but now nearly forgotten folk entertainment
The Works of the Gawain-Poet
The Works of the “Gawain”-Poet presents a number of distinctive features: a conservatively edited text; the original manuscript illustrations; apparatus, glosses, and notes on the page with the text; and a full introduction and bibliography. The book should prove useful both as a reading and reference edition and as a graduate text.
The Heritage of Longwood
The story of an outrageous architectural folly—Longwood, in Natchez, Mississippi—which stands unfinished today as one of the grandest and most opulent of antebellum mansions.
The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity
Small Incisive Shocks
An evaluation that tracks American culture’s shift from modernism into postmodernism
Shadow and Shelter
An examination of the swamp’s role in southern cultural, literary, and ecological history
Mississippi Black History Makers
A well-researched collection of biographical sketches of notable African Americans from Mississippi
Lincoln's Moral Vision
The Second Inaugural Address
An assessment of the great speech as Lincoln's moral resolution of his views on slavery, race, and religion
Ladies First
Women in Music Videos
A book that shows how the world of music video has thrust feminism to the forefront
Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith
We should always remind ourselves that capitalism, now politely called the market system, has always, basically, been unstable.
Faulkner and Postmodernism
Where William Faulkner’s fiction stands in relation to that of Ellison, Pynchon, Nabokov, and other postmodern greats
Dark Laughter
The Satiric Art of Oliver W. Harrington
An appreciative retrospective of the art created by the man Langston Hughes called America’s greatest black cartoonist