Picture of author.

Carson McCullers (1917–1967)

Author of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

85+ Works 20,216 Members 457 Reviews 124 Favorited

About the Author

Carson McCullers was born in Columbus, Georgia, on February 19, 1917. She died at age fifty in Nyack, New York, on September 29, 1967. A promising pianist, she had hoped to enroll at the Juilliard School of Music when she was seventeen, but when she arrived in New York, she attended writing classes show more at Columbia University instead. In December 1936 her first story, "Wunderkind," was published in "Story" magazine. That winter she began work on "The Mute," which would become her enduring masterpiece, "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter." (Publisher Provided) Carson McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith on February 19, 1917 in Columbus, Georgia. At the age of seventeen, desiring to become a famous concert pianist, she went to New York City to attend the Julliard School of Music. Her family sacrificed and raised money for her tuition to go to Julliard, but she lost all of her money when she left her pocketbook on the subway. Unable to tell her family what had happened, she took writing classes at Columbia University and New York University from 1935-1936. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, was published in 1940. Her other novels included Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Ballad of the Sad Café, The Member of the Wedding, and Clock Without Hands. With the help of Tennessee Williams, The Member of the Wedding was adapted into a play, which won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1950. She died from a stroke and subsequent brain hemorrhage on September 29, 1967at the age of 50. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Carson McCullers

Works by Carson McCullers

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) 10,665 copies
The Member of the Wedding (1946) 2,818 copies
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) 1,032 copies
Clock Without Hands (1961) 674 copies
The Mortgaged Heart (1971) 240 copies
Wunderkind (1974) 42 copies
Seven Contemporary Short Novels [Third Edition] (1997) — Contributor — 40 copies
Seven Contemporary Short Novels [second edition] (1969) — Contributor — 35 copies
Shorter Novels and Stories (1972) 15 copies
Romans et nouvelles (1994) 11 copies
El mudo y otros textos (2007) 10 copies
Sucker (1963) 8 copies
Contos Escolhidos (2012) 7 copies
The Jockey (1941) 5 copies
The Sojourner 3 copies
The March (1968) 2 copies
Meistererzählungen. (1991) 1 copy
Poldi 1 copy
The Aliens 1 copy
Like that 1 copy
The pestle 1 copy

Associated Works

50 Great Short Stories (1952) — Contributor — 1,242 copies
Short Story Masterpieces (1954) — Contributor — 675 copies
As I Lay Dying [Norton Critical Edition] (2009) — Contributor — 544 copies
The World of the Short Story: A 20th Century Collection (1986) — Contributor — 461 copies
Fifty Great American Short Stories (1965) — Contributor — 430 copies
Women & Fiction: Short Stories By and About Women (1975) — Contributor — 365 copies
Diane Goode's American Christmas (1754) — Contributor — 297 copies
The 40s: The Story of a Decade (2014) — Contributor — 275 copies
The Treasury of American Short Stories (1981) — Contributor — 267 copies
Famous American Plays of the 1940s (1900) — Contributor — 232 copies
The Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories (1991) — Contributor — 121 copies
The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1997) — Contributor — 98 copies
Who Do You Think You Are?: Stories of Friends and Enemies (1993) — Contributor — 94 copies
Best American Plays: Third Series, 1945-1951 (1952) — Contributor — 69 copies
200 Years of Great American Short Stories (1975) — Contributor — 68 copies
55 Short Stories from The New Yorker, 1940 to 1950 (1949) — Contributor — 60 copies
Art of Fiction (1967) — Contributor — 51 copies
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1943 (1943) — Contributor — 48 copies
The Seasons of Women: An Anthology (1995) — Contributor — 46 copies
Point of Departure (1967) — Contributor — 46 copies
50 Best Plays of the American Theatre [4-volume set] (1969) — Contributor — 33 copies
Mothers and Daughters: An Anthology (1998) — Contributor — 33 copies
Hey-How for Halloween! (1974) — Contributor — 30 copies
The Second Penguin Book of Modern Women's Short Stories (1997) — Contributor — 27 copies
Vogue's First Reader (1942) — Contributor — 27 copies
Great Short Stories of the World (1965) — Contributor — 25 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1964 (1964) — Contributor — 25 copies
Reflections in a Golden Eye [1967 film] (1967) — Original novel — 24 copies
Studies in Fiction (1965) — Contributor — 22 copies
Eight Short Novels (1967) — Contributor — 22 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1944 (1944) — Contributor — 18 copies
Twentieth-Century American Short Stories: An Anthology (1975) — Contributor — 17 copies
Story to Anti-Story (1979) — Contributor — 13 copies
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter [1968 film] (1968) — Original book — 10 copies
Great Tales of City Dwellers (1955) — Contributor — 8 copies
Best modern short stories (1965) — Contributor — 8 copies
The Short Story & You (1987) — Contributor — 7 copies
20th Century American Short Stories, Volume 2 — Contributor — 3 copies
Twelve short novels (1976) — Contributor — 3 copies
Enjoying Stories (1987) — Contributor — 2 copies

Tagged

1940s (103) 20th century (382) America (81) American (356) American fiction (100) American literature (642) American South (169) anthology (534) Carson McCullers (111) classic (280) classics (263) coming of age (157) drama (94) essays (63) fiction (3,072) friendship (68) Georgia (99) lesbian (58) Library of America (92) literature (583) loneliness (104) non-fiction (60) novel (480) own (120) plays (59) racism (104) read (189) Roman (78) short stories (1,094) short story (78) South (106) southern (196) southern fiction (75) southern gothic (210) southern literature (173) stories (101) to-read (1,199) unread (168) USA (162) women (70)

Common Knowledge

Legal name
Smith, Lula Carson (born)
Birthdate
1917-02-19
Date of death
1967-09-29
Burial location
Oak Hill Cemetery, Nyack, Rockland County, New York, USA
Gender
female
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Place of death
Nyack, New York, USA
Cause of death
brain hemorrhage
Places of residence
New York, New York, USA
Education
Columbia University
Washington Square College
Occupations
novelist
short-story writer
playwright
Relationships
McCullers, Reeves (husband)
Smith, Margarita G. (sister)
Organizations
American Academy of Arts and Letters (1952)
February House
Yaddo
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
Awards and honors
Georgia Women of Achievement (1994)
American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature ∙ 1943)
Georgia Writers Hall of Fame
Short biography
Carson McCullers reinvented herself after leaving home at age 17 to study at the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. Something happened to make her lose the money and she never attended the school.  Instead, she worked and took night classes at university.  Her published writing began to appear in 1936.  She suffered throughout her life from serious illness, including rheumatic fever and several strokes. By the age of 31, her left side was completely paralyzed.  Her work, usually set in the South of her birth, often focused on people seen as misfits and outcasts.

Members

Discussions

GROUP READ: [The Heart is a Lonely Hunter] in 2013 Category Challenge (September 2013)
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter in The Clocks Have All Stopped (April 2012)

Reviews

NOTE: Read only the tititular story (for book club).

Thought it had potential based on the set-up, but the set-up seemed to span about 90% of the story. The "climax" was anticlimactic and I was left with more questions by the end than I had started with. The characters interested me and I found the setting to be quite lifelike and captivating, but the plot just didn't deliver.
 
Flagged
Spyder227 | 55 other reviews | Feb 5, 2024 |
 
Flagged
fmclellan | 243 other reviews | Jan 23, 2024 |

Lists

AP Lit (1)
(1)
Cooper (1)
1950s (1)
Teens (2)
Romans (2)
1940s (3)
1960s (1)

Awards

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Associated Authors

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Statistics

Works
85
Also by
54
Members
20,216
Popularity
#1,073
Rating
3.9
Reviews
457
ISBNs
457
Languages
24
Favorited
124

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