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Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. In 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction[1] and the U.S. National Book Award[2] for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.

For other people with similar names, see Katherine Porter.

Katherine Anne Porter

Callie Russell Porter
(1890-05-15)May 15, 1890
Indian Creek, Texas, U.S.

September 18, 1980(1980-09-18) (aged 90)
Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.

  • Journalist
  • essayist
  • short story writer
  • novelist
  • political activist

1920–1977

  • John Koontz
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1906; div. 1915)​
  • Ernest Stock
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1926; div. 1927)​
  • Eugene Pressly
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1930; div. 1938)​
  • Albert Erskine
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1938; div. 1942)​

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Katherine Anne Porter was born in Indian Creek, Texas, as Callie Russell Porter to Harrison Boone Porter and Mary Alice (Jones) Porter. Although her father claimed maternal descent from American frontiersman Daniel Boone, Porter herself altered this alleged descent to be from Boone's brother Jonathan as "the record of his descendants was obscure, so that no-one could contradict her." This relationship was unfounded.[3] Porter was enthusiastic about her own genealogy and family history, and spent years constructing a "quasi-official" version of her ancestry alleging descent from a companion of William the Conqueror,[4] although "most of the genealogical connections she boasted did not exist."[5] The writer O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) was claimed as her father's second cousin,[6] but later research established that "except the accident of her name", there was no connection. Despite her focus on her family history, Porter failed to identify her relationship to Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States, his grandmother being the sister of Porter's uncle-by-marriage.[7] The rest of Porter's family did not take her genealogical embellishments seriously, considering them to be part of her character as an "accomplished raconteur".[8]

1962 –

Emerson-Thoreau Medal

1966 – for The Collected Stories (1965)[1]

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

1966 – for The Collected Stories (1965)[2]

National Book Award

1967 – Gold Medal Award for Fiction from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters

Five nominations for the (1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968)[21]

Nobel Prize in Literature

2006 – Porter was featured on a . She was the 22nd person featured in the Literary Arts commemorative stamp series.[26][27]

States postage stamp issued May 15, 2006 with a value of 39¢

Flowering Judas (Harcourt, Brace: 1930). Includes eight of Porter's earliest short stories.

(Harcourt, Brace: 1935). Includes the contents of the earlier edition as well as four additional stories.

Flowering Judas and Other Stories

(Harcourt, Brace: 1939). Includes the three stories Porter referred to as short novels: "Old Mortality", "Noon Wine" (American radio, 1948; American TV, 1966; American TV, 1985), and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" (American radio, 1950; Canadian TV, 1963 & British TV, 1964).

Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels

(Harcourt, Brace: 1944). Includes nine of Porter's short stories.

The Leaning Tower and Other Stories

(Harcourt, Brace: 1955). Includes ten of Porter's previously published short stories, all of which take place in the American South.

The Old Order: Stories of the South

(Harcourt, Brace: 1964). Includes all twenty-six of Porter's previously published short stories, including the three she preferred to call short novels, as well as four additional stories.

The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

Media related to Katherine Anne Porter at Wikimedia Commons

Quotations related to Katherine Anne Porter at Wikiquote

at Internet Archive

Works by or about Katherine Anne Porter

at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Works by Katherine Anne Porter

Barbara Thompson Davis (Winter–Spring 1963). . The Paris Review. Winter-Spring 1963 (29).

"Katherine Anne Porter, The Art of Fiction No. 29"

Petri Liukkonen. . Books and Writers.

"Katherine Anne Porter"

Archived 2013-02-08 at the Wayback Machine

Brief biography at Perspectives in American Literature

Katherine Anne Porter at American Masters (PBS)

Photos of the first edition of Porter's Pulitzer Prize winning book

Official site of Porter's childhood home in Kyle, TX

and Paul Porter papers housed at Hornbake Library, University of Maryland Libraries

Papers of Katherine Anne Porter

Stuart Wright Collection: Katherine Anne Porter Papers (#1169-009), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University

at the University of Maryland libraries. Contains correspondence with Katherine Anne Porter.

Mary Louis Doherty papers

at the University of Maryland libraries. Contains correspondence with and financial papers of Katherine Anne Porter.

Harry C. Perry, Jr. papers

at the University of Maryland libraries. Abels was the literary agent, editor, and friend of Katherine Anne Porter.

Cyrilly Abels papers

. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler Collection of Katherine Anne Porter