Elizabeth Spencer, a lyrical Southern writer whose novels and short stories explored the conflicts and inner lives of ordinary people and families and communities drawn from her native Mississippi and from decades abroad in Italy and Canada, died on Sunday at her home in Chapel Hill, N.C. She was 98.

Her death was confirmed by the playwright Craig Lucas, who adapted her 1960 novella “The Light in the Piazza” for the stage.

Often compared to the Southern voices of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, or even to Henry James for her portrayals of expatriate Americans caught in crises far from home, Ms. Spencer over nearly seven decades produced nine novels, eight collections of short stories, a memoir and a play.

Much of her literary trove was set in small towns in Mississippi, and in Rome, Venice and Montreal. Her work examined racism, subtle class distinctions and a universe of prejudices that bound its male protagonists and its more numerous world-weary heroines to loveless marriages, drunken spouses, bigoted families and oppressive customs.