Simpkinsville and Vicinity: Arkansas Stories of Ruth McEnery Stuart

by Ruth McEnery Stuart, Ethel C. Simpson (Editor)

For nearly thirty years, from the first story by Ruth McEnery Stuart published in the New Princeton Magazine in 1888 until her death in 1917, readers throughout the United States knew her stories of life in Simpkinsville, an imaginary village in southwest Arkansas. Besides their importance in the history of local-color fiction, Stuart’s stories of Simpkinsville evoke that connection between past and present that many Americans are continually seeking. They assert the values of rural family life and closeness to the land.

Stuart portrays characters and incidents with delicious humor that overrides the sentimental tone dominant in most local-color writing. Her stories and sketches celebrate the minor triumphs, joys, and tragedies of country and small town life with the same intimacy and charm she displayed on lecture platforms throughout the country.

The ten stories collected here are chosen from the best of Stuart’s work and prefaced by Ethel C. Simpson in a wise and revealing introduction that is at the same time a scholarly discussion and an amiable welcome to Simpkinsville. This reissue of a classic in Arkansas storytelling will be met with enthusiasm by historians, folklorists, and general readers alike. In Stuart’s depiction of the plain folk of Arkansas, she both entertains and instructs as she gently mocks the foibles of human nature and the attitudes and tastes of the rural South in the Gilded Age.

214 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1983

About the author

She was born Mary Routh McEnery Stuart, child of James and Mary Routh (Stirling) McEnery in Marksville, Louisiana. (She changed the spelling of her name to "Ruth" after she began her career in literature.) Stuart's true date of birth is not known with certainty.

Stuart first published in February 1888 in the New Princeton Review. She sold a second story to Harpers New Monthly Magazine shortly thereafter; in the early 1890s she moved to New York City. Stuart was active in her literary career from 1888 until 1917, producing some 75 works.Between 1891 and 1897 she produced "20 books, short stories, sketches, and reprinted verses she had originally published in magazines". She was known not just for her writing, but also for oral performances of her work. Her most famous work is said to be Sonny (1896). She was also occasionally a sub-editor at Harpers.

Stuart has been characterized as belonging to the school of "American local color writing that emphasizes regional characteristics in landscape, way of life, and language." Stuart's treatment of blacks forms a significant portion of her corpus and, if potentially troublesome today, "contemporary critics acclaimed her as providing an authentic representation of African Americans." Her work is said to be of the same school as Kate Chopin

Stuart's work was appreciated in England. She became a member of the Lyceum Club there in 1904. In 1915 she was granted an honorary Litt.D. in 1915 by Tulane University. Also in 1915 a literary club, Ruth McEnery Stuart Clan, was founded and named in her honor.

Stuart died in New York City in 1917 and was buried in New Orleans.