CLAUDIA DURST JOHNSON is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama, where she served as chair of the English Department for 12 years. She is series editor of the Greenwood Press Literature in Context series, for which she has authored numerous works including Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird (1994), Understanding The Scarlet Letter (1995), Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1996), Understanding The Crucible (1998) and most recently Understanding The Grapes of Wrath (1999).