Porter, Katherine Anne

Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) produced a relatively small body of fiction, but she wrote thousands and thousands of letters. The present selection of 135 unexpurgated letters, written to seventy-four different persons, begins with a 1916 letter written from a tuberculosis sanatorium in Texas and ends with a 1979 letter dictated to an unnamed nursing-home attendant in Maryland. Different from any previous selection, this body of letters does not omit Porter's frank criticism of fellow writers and spans her entire life.

María Concepción -- Virgin Violeta -- The martyr -- Magic -- Rope -- He -- Theft -- That tree -- The jilting of Granny Weatherall -- Flowering Judas -- The cracked looking-glass -- Hacienda -- Old mortality -- Noon wine -- Pale horse, pale rider -- The old order -- The source -- The journey -- The witness -- The circus -- The last leaf -- The fig tree -- The grave -- The downward path to wisdom -- A day's work -- Holiday -- The leaning tower.