A partial listing….
- Southern Renascence: The Literature of the Modern South. [Co-edited with Robert D. Jacobs]. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1953.
- Thomas Wolfe: The Weather of His Youth. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1955.
- The Golden Weather. New York: Atheneum, 1961.
- The Idea of an American Novel. [Co-editor with John Rees Moore]. New York: T. Y. Crowell Co., 1961.
- The Curious Death of the Novel: Essays in American Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967.
- Babe Ruth’s Ghost: And Other Historical and Literary Speculations. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.
- A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Southern Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.
- George W. Cable: The Life and Times of a Southern Heretic. New York: Pegasus, 1969.
- The Writer in the South: Studies in a Literary Community. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1972.
- The Comic Imagination in American Literature. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1973.
- Black Poetry in America: Two Essays in Historical Interpretation. [Co-authored with Blyden Jackson]. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974.
- William Elliott Shoots a Bear: Essays on the Southern Literary Imagination. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975.
- The Wary Fugitives: Four Poets and the South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.
- The Literary South. [Editor]. New York: Wiley, 1979.
- Surfaces of a Diamond. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981.
- A Gallery of Southerners. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
- The History of Southern Literature. [Editor]. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
- The Edge of the Swamp: A Study in the Literature and Society of the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
- The Mockingbird in the Gum Tree: A Literary Gallimaufry. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991.
- The Heat of the Sun. Atlanta, Ga.: Longstreet Press, 1995.
- A Writer’s Companion. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995.