The Old Order: Stories of the South
First edition cover art
AuthorKatherine Anne Porter
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarvest Books (Harcourt, Brace and Company)
Publication date
1955
Media typePrint (paperback)
ISBN978-1-59853-029-2
OCLC2008927625

The Old Order: Stories of the South is a collection of nine works of short fiction and a short novel by Katherine Anne Porter, published in 1955 by Harvest Books, a paperback subsidiary of Harcourt, Brace and Company. The works selected for this volume are assembled from Porter's previously published material.[1]

Stories

The short fiction that comprises The Old Order: Stories of the South are reprints of previously published work by Porter. The first six stories, organized under the heading The Old Order, a story sequence concerns the character Miranda Gay, as does the short novel "Old Mortality."[2] "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall", "He" and "Magic" first appeared in Flowering Judas (1930).[3] "Old Mortality" was originally collected in Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels (1939).

The Old Order

  • "The Source" (Accent, Spring 1941)
  • "The Journey" (The Southern Review, Winter 1936)
  • "The Witness" (Virginia Quarterly Review, January 1935)[4]
  • "The Circus" (The Southern Review, July 1935)
  • "The Last Leaf" (Virginia Quarterly Review, January 1935)[5]
  • "The Grave" (Virginia Quarterly Review, April 1935)

from Flowering Judas and Other Stories (1935)

  • "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
  • "He"
  • "Magic"

from Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels (1939).

  • "Old Mortality"

Reception

Porter was praised for writing with an especially human style. In addition to that her stories had a wonderful simplicity to them that also reflected depth in a unique way. The Old Order contained many short stories that would win her a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1966. This collection of stories served to further her fame and increase her popularity. These stories really provide a window into life in the American south at the turn of the twentieth century.[6]

Literary critic Howard Moss in The New York Times Book Review commented:

The closest thing to a spokesman Porter allows herself is a woman called Miranda...found in the eight reminiscences of the South that were originally published in The Leaning Tower."—Literary critic [7]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Unrue, 2008 p. 1041
  2. ↑ Unrue, 2008 p. 1040-1041
  3. ↑ Unrue, 2008 p. 1040: These works were reprinted in Flowering Judas and Other Stories in 1935
  4. ↑ Unrue, 2008 p. 1040: Presented as "Uncle Jimbilly" under heading "Two Plantation Portraits"
  5. ↑ Unrue, 2008 p. 1040: Presented under heading "Two Plantation Portraits"
  6. ↑ Davis, Barbara (1963). "Katherine Anne Porter, The Art of Fiction". The Paris Review (29).
  7. ↑ Moss, 1965 in Unrue, 2009 p. 48

Sources

  • Unrue, Darlene Harbour. 1997. Critical Essays on Katherine Anne Porter. Editor, Darlene Harbour Unrue. G. K. Hall and Company, New York. ISBN 0-7838-0022-3
  • Unrue, Darleen Harbour. 2008. Editor in Katherine Anne Porter: Collected Stories and Other Writings. Literary Classics of the United States (Compilation, notes and chronology), New York. The Library of America Series (2009). ISBN 978-1-59853-029-2
  • Davis, Barbara Thompson. 1963. Katherine Anne Porter: The Art of Fiction (interview) (Winter-Spring 1963). The Paris Review. Retrieved January 2, 2023. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4569/the-art-of-fiction-no-29-katherine-anne-porter Retrieved January 2, 2023.
  • Moss, Howard. 1965. The Collected Stories: A Poet of the Story in Critical Essays on Katherine Anne Porter (1997). Editor, Darlene Harbour Unrue. G. K. Hall and Company, New York. ISBN 0-7838-0022-3
  • Schwartz, Edward. 1953. Katherine Anne Porter: A Critical Bibliography. The Folcroft Press, Inc., Forcroft, PA. Reprinted from the Bulletin of the New York Public Library, May 1953. ISBN 9780841475823
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