Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
Author of The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
About the Author
Katherine Anne Porter is known for her subtle and delicate perception; her careful, disciplined technique; and her precision of word and phrase. She wrote slowly and with restraint but achieved an impression of ease and naturalness that is close to perfection. She was born in Texas, schooled in show more Louisiana convents, and, working as a newspaper reporter and freelance journalist, traveled to such places as Paris, Majorca, Berlin, Vienna, and Mexico. Her Collected Stories (1965), which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1966, was written over a long lifetime. It includes works that have been a standard part of high school and college literature courses for a half-century. Among the best are "Noon Wine," "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," and "Flowering Judas." "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," long enough to be considered a novelette, is one of several stories about a character named Miranda who as a girl and young woman undergoes experiences not unlike those of Porter. Other Miranda stories are "Old Mortality" and a group of seven gathered under the title "The Old Order" that deal with her childhood. Her one and only full-length novel, Ship of Fools (1962), 20 years in the writing, "is the story of a voyage... . A novel of character rather than of action, it has as its main purpose a study of the German ethos shortly before Hitler's coming to power in Germany... ."Ship of Fools' is also a human comedy and a moral allegory" (New Yorker). To some critics, the book was a disappointment, but all recognized its importance and it appeared on the bestseller list for 28 weeks in 1962. "In my view," wrote Robert Penn Warren in a tribute published in Saturday Review after Porter's death in 1980, "the final importance of Katherine Anne Porter is not merely that she has written a number of fictions which have enlarged and deepened the nature of the story, both short and long, in our time, but that she has created an oeuvre---a body of work including fiction, essays, letters, and journals---that bears the stamp of a personality, distinctive, delicately perceptive, keenly aware of the depth and darkness of human experience, delighted by the beauty of the world and the triumphs of human kindness and warmth, and thoroughly committed to a quest for meaning in the midst of the ironic complexities of man's lot." Much of the nonfictional part of that body of work was gathered into The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: UPress, University Press of Mississippi
Works by Katherine Anne Porter
María Concepción 2 copies
The Grave 2 copies
A Day's Work 2 copies
Bolondok hajj̤a : regňy 1 copy
Antologia do conto moderno — Author — 1 copy
[No title] 1 copy
Brod budala 1 copy
They Trample on Your Heart 1 copy
He 1 copy
Theft 1 copy
Rope 1 copy
Old Order - Stories Of The South From Flowering Judas, Pale Horse, Pale Rider And The Leaning Tower (1972) 1 copy
Det skæve tårn 1 copy
Associated Works
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 902 copies
The Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniento, Written by Himself for His Children (1831) — Translator, some editions — 139 copies
Growing Up in the South: An Anthology of Modern Southern Literature (1991) — Contributor — 138 copies
An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine (2000) — Contributor — 129 copies
The Retrial of Joan of Arc: The Evidence for her Vindication (1953) — Foreword, some editions — 75 copies
Gentlemen, Scholars and Scoundrels: A Treasury of the Best of Harper's Magazine from 1850 to the Present (1959) — Contributor — 55 copies
Published and Perished: Memoria, Eulogies, and Remembrances of American Writers (2002) — Contributor — 36 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970 (1970) — Contributor — 13 copies
Many-Colored Fleece: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Catholic Fiction (2022) — Contributor — 9 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1937 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1937) — Contributor — 6 copies
Fiesta in November; stories from Latin America, selected and edited by Angel Flores and Dudley Poore, with an… (1942) — Preface, some editions — 6 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1940 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1940) — Contributor — 5 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1936 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1936) — Contributor — 4 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970, Volume II (1970) — Contributor — 3 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1933 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Porter, Callie Russel
- Other names
- Porter, Katherine Anne Maria Veronica Callista Russel
- Birthdate
- 1890-05-15
- Date of death
- 1980-09-18
- Burial location
- Indian Creek Cemetery, Indian Creek, Texas, USA
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Indian Creek, Texas, USA
- Place of death
- Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
- Places of residence
- Indian Creek, Texas, USA
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Denver, Colorado, USA
New York, New York, USA
Mexico City, Mexico
Berlin, Germany (show all 9)
Paris, France
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Kyle, Texas, USA - Education
- self-educated
- Occupations
- short-story writer
novelist
essayist
journalist
translator
literary critic (show all 7)
ghostwriter - Relationships
- Erskine, Albert (husband)
Taylor, Peter Hillsman (friend) - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature ∙ 1941)
National Institute of Arts and Letters (vice-president, 1950-52) - Awards and honors
- Emerson-Thoreau Medal (1962)
Gold medal, National Institute of Arts and Letters (1967)
Creative arts award, Brandeis University (1971-72)
Postage stamp, US Postal Service (2006)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Schwob Nederland (1)
Female Author (1)
1930s (1)
1960s (1)
Favourite Books (1)
Ocean Setting (1)
Read These Too (1)
Southern Fiction (1)
Hidden Classics (1)
discontinued (1)
Books with Twins (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 68
- Also by
- 80
- Members
- 4,468
- Popularity
- #5,609
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 72
- ISBNs
- 140
- Languages
- 10
- Favorited
- 20
Here is a wonderful composition of words in Pale Horse, Pale Rider, by Katherine Anne Porter: “It is like turning a corner absorbed in your painful thoughts and meeting your state of mind embodied, face to face.”
That is the quality of writing and insight I found here.… (more)