The Complete Stories

by Flannery O'Connor, Robert Giroux (Introduction)

Overview

Winner of the National Book Award

The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's monumental contribution to American fiction.

There are thirty-one stories here in all, including twelve that do not appear in the only two story collections O'Connor put together in her short lifetime—Everything That Rises Must Converge and A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

O'Connor published her first story, "The Geranium," in 1946, while she was working on her master's degree at the University of Iowa. Arranged chronologically, this collection shows that her last story, "Judgement Day"—sent to her publisher shortly before her death—is a brilliantly rewritten and transfigured version of "The Geranium." Taken together, these stories reveal a lively, penetrating talent that has given us some of the most powerful and disturbing fiction of the twentieth century. Also included is an introduction by O'Connor's longtime editor and friend, Robert Giroux.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374515362
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	01/01/1971
Series:	FSG Classics
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	576
Sales rank:	29,120
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.50(d)
Lexile:	890L (what's this?)

About the Author

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was one of America’s most gifted writers. She wrote two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, and two story collections, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Her Complete Stories, published posthumously in 1972, won the National Book Award that year, and in a 2009 online poll it was voted as the best book to have won the award in the contest's 60-year history. Her essays were published in Mystery and Manners and her letters in The Habit of Being.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Robert Giroux

The Geranium
The Barber
Wildcat
The Crop
The Turkey
The Train
The Peeler
The Heart of the Park
A Stroke of Good Fortune
Enoch and the Gorilla
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
A Late Encounter with the Enemy
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
The River
A Circle in the Fire
The Displaced Person
A Temple of the Holy Ghost
The Artificial Nigger
Good Country People
You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead
Greenleaf
A View of the Woods
The Enduring Chill
The Comforts of Home
Everything That Rises Must Converge
The Partridge Festival
The Lame Shall Enter First
Why Do the Heathen Rage?
Revelation
Parker's Back
Judgement Day

Editorial Reviews

What we lost when she died is bitter. What we have is astonishing: the stories burn brighter than ever, and strike deeper.” —Walter Clemons, Newsweek

From the Publisher

It is nearly impossible to read Carlene Bauer’s Frances and Bernard and not wonder about the works Bauer is referencing. For those who want to read actual work by O’Connor and Lowell, these two collections are great launch points. The short stories of O’Connor won her the National Book Award and provide a good overview of her potent, brutal, and powerful writing. They are arranged in chronological order so Bauer’s readers can speculate on which stories Frances and Bernard may have been discussing. Robert Lowell’s massive Collected Poems is also structured chronologically and takes readers through his development and interests as a poet. However, for readers who want to jump around, “For the Union Dead,” “The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket,” and “Waking Early Sunday Morning” are three of his most iconic poems.

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