“Anything you can do to keep The Ozarks alive and in print is a gift to folklorists and regional writers. Randolph was a proud Ozarker and a fine, zesty writer, a wit, a charmer. The Ozarks is maybe his most enduring treasure. We need to be reminded how this rascal of a writer held forth on his favorite subject.”
—Roger Abrahams, author A Singer and Her Songs: Almeda Riddle’s Book of Ballads
“In his invaluable and instructive introduction, Robert Cochran mentions that Randolph in fact had aspired to be a cultural anthropologist, in the holistic vein of Margaret Mead writing Coming of Age in Samoa, but had been rejected by Boas. In re-issuing Randolph’s 1931 work, Cochran, as well as Brooks Blevins, the Chronicles of the Ozarks series general editor, could be seen as simply promoting their own interests in Ozarkiana. But the significance of this work goes well beyond any regional constraints. Despite Randolph’s obvious Tylorian bias against the staying power of ‘primitive’ society, any folklorist reading his work would comprehend more fully the power of folklore’s raw material. Our humanity in all its possibilities, good and bad and indifferent, vibrates in the narrative that people construct of their lives, through their actions, words, and beliefs. Collectors like Randolph understood that, and were able to transmit what they collected through their own superbly crafted narratives.”
—John Wolford, Journal of Folklore Research, August 2018