Don Graham brings together the history, color, and character of 
Texas's capital city since 1839 when it was selected, on the advice 
of Mirabeau B. Lamar, as the site for a new capital of the then-
Republic of Texas.

    Essays, fiction, and poetry reveal the variety of literary 
responses to Austin through the decades and are organized in a 
roughly chronological fashion to reveal the themes, places, and 
personalities that have defined the life of the city.

    Austin was always about three things: natural beauty, 
government, and education; thus, many of the pieces in this 
volume dwell upon one and sometimes all of these themes.

    Besides O. Henry, the other most important literary figures in 
the city's history were J. Frank Dobie, Roy Bedichek, and Walter 
P. Webb: folklorist, naturalist, historian. During their heyday, from 
the 1930s through the early 1960s, they were the face of literary 
culture in the city. They remain a source of interest, pride, and 
sometimes controversy.

    Austin is a well-known haven of liberal political activism, 
represented by such well-known figures as Lyndon B. Johnson, 
Ralph Yarborough, Ann and David Richards, Liz Carpenter, 
Willie Morris, John Henry Faulk, and Molly Ivins.

    The city is also a haven for literary writers, many of whom 
appear in these pages: Carolyn Osborn, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, 
Dagoberto Gilb, Stephen Harrigan, and Lawrence Wright, to name 
a few. Among the poets, Thomas Whitbread, Dave Oliphant, 
David Wevill, and Christopher Middleton have long been on the 
scene.

    Certain sites recur—the University Tower, Barton Springs, 
various watering holes of another kind—so that anybody who has 
ever spent time in Austin will experience twinges of nostalgia for 
vanished icons, closed-down venues, and long-gone sites of 
pleasure brought to life once again, in these pages.

_________________________________________________________

DON GRAHAM is the J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of 
American and English Literature at the University of Texas at 
Austin. In 2006, he received the Chancellor's Council Outstanding 
Teaching Award. He is the author of numerous books and articles, 
including Giant Country: Essays on Texas (1998); and Kings of 
Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire (2003). 
In 2003 Graham edited Lone Star Literature: From the Red River to 
the Rio Grande. Graham has lived in Austin since the late 1970s.



What people are saying about this book

"Mr. Graham has developed, via nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, a 
clear picture of Austin, its history and its present realities and 
postures."—Tom Dodge, The Dallas Morning News, May 6, 2007

"[Graham] should be proud of this baby. [His] thorough detective 
work at finding the best among the obscure is delightful, as usual. 
The great fun of reading a Don Graham anthology is to be introduced 
to many, many excellent writers I’ve never heard of—or to discover 
the lesser-known masterworks of writers I thought I knew. Bravo 
once again!"—Tom Zigal, contributor to Literary Austin and author 
of the Kurt Muller mystery series