Walter Sullivan, a native of Nashville, is a 1947 Vanderbilt University alumnus who later became a Professor of English at Vanderbilt University for 51 years, and retired in 2000. Professor Sullivan is Vanderbilt's leading authority on the Fugitives and the Agrarians, and was personal friends with Donald Davidson, Peter Taylor, Allen Tate, Andrew Lytle, and Robert Penn Warren. He was a student of Richmond Beatty, Donald Davidson, Walter Clyde Curry, and Claude Finney, each contributing to his dedication to literature and teaching. Professor Sullivan earned a Master's of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years during World War II. He is a fiction writer and his first novel, Sojourn of a Stranger, was published in 1957. His second novel, The Long, Long Love, was published in 1959. Since that time he has authored numerous articles, books, and short stories.

This collection contains 157 pieces of correspondence, in 27 file folders, to Walter Sullivan from the following Southern literary writers, who were part of the Fugitives/Agrarians: Donald Davidson, Andrew Lytle, Allen Tate, Peter Taylor, and Robert Penn Warren. It also includes four (4) books, and 43 reel-to-reel tapes, in chronological order, from Literary Symposium Lectures, Panels, Readings, and Interviews with Southern writers.