Considered by many scholars to be the first novel to realistically depict the Appalachian region and its people, Anne Armstrong's This Day and Time (1930) follows a resilient young woman named Ivy, deserted by her husband and raising a young son in the mountains after having tried working factory jobs in town. With lyrical descriptions of the landscape and careful, if archaic, use of dialect, Armstrong explores both timeless and contemporaneous themes, including the impact of industrialization, the deep connection between mountaineers and their land, the roles and victimization of women, and the cycle of life through the changing seasons. Agrarian critic Donald Davidson called it "as true a novel of the mountains as has been written."
For this new edition of Armstrong's work, editor Linda Behrend has written a critical introduction that discusses these literary themes and other components of the text,including biographical information, an analysis of Armstrong's style and technique, and connections to other literary works of the time. An extensive bibliography includes archival and primary sources, book reviews from This Day and Time's original appearance in 1930, reviews of stage adaptations of the book, and sources that shed light on its unique linguistic style. Almost a century after This Day and Time was first published, this edition offers both an engaging narrative and an insightful study for a new generation of readers.