Mississippi's distinctively southern sense of place has been tested by time and documented by many feeling observers such as are included in this volume. This portrait of Mississippi not only is depicted by an abounding multiplicity of family snapshots and serious photographic studies but also is heightened by commentary and narrative from the pens of many acclaimed Mississippi writers of the twentieth century.

Here is a collection of more than two hundred old photographs and a selection of literary passages that impart the character of Mississippi just before and just after the last century closed down in behalf of a new age. The vivid Mississippi those old cameras saw is largely gone, although the identifying imprint of place somehow remains static and lasting.

Compiled from the large collection of photographic images at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, this book observing a Mississippi that has now settled deep in memory reveals once-alive views that are now bygone. What will strike the eye of the modern observer is the unremitting pace of change and Mississippi's dateless sense of place. What struck the eye of each photographer and touched the feeling heart of each writer is preserved here as a vibrant record.

As a new era approaches, Mississippi Observed offers a valediction to the ending century and an occasion for a vanished Mississippi once again to be seen closely. This tender portrayal of the Magnolia State bids a long farewell to old Mississippi and an invitation to things that will come in the new millennium.