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Flannery O'Connor
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Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America) Hardcover – September 1, 1988

by Flannery O'Connor (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 432 ratings
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In her short lifetime, Flannery O’Connor became one of the most distinctive American writers of the twentieth century. By birth a native of Georgia and a Roman Catholic, O’Connor depicts, in all its comic and horrendous incongruity, the limits of worldly wisdom and the mysteries of divine grace in the “Christ-haunted” Protestant South. This Library of America collection, the most comprehensive ever published, contains all of her novels and short-story collections, as well as nine other stories, eight of her most important essays, and a selection of 259 witty, spirited, and revealing letters, twenty-one published here for the first time.

Her fiction brilliantly explores the human obsession with seemingly banal things. It might be a new hat or clean hogs or, for Hazel Motes, hero of Wise Blood (1952), an automobile. “Nobody with a good car needs to be justified,” Hazel assures himself while using its hood for a pulpit to preach his “Church Without Christ.” As in O’Connor’s subsequent work, the characters in this novel are driven to violence, even murder, and their strong vernacular endows them with the discomforting reality of next-door neighbors. “In order to recognize a freak,” she remarks in one of her essays, “you have to have a conception of the whole man.”

In the title story of her first, dazzling collection of stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955), the old grandmother discovers the comic irrelevance of good manners when she and her family meet up with the sinister Misfit, who claims there is “no pleasure but meanness.” The terror of urban dislocation in “The Artificial Nigger,” the bizarre baptism in “The River,” or one-legged Hulga Hopewell’s encounter with a Bible salesman in “Good Country People”—these startling events give readers the uneasy sense of mysteries about to be revealed.

Her second novel, The Violent Bear It Away (1960), casts the shadow of the Old Testament across a landscape of backwoods shacks, modern towns, and empty highways. Caught between the prophetic fury of his great-uncle and the unrelenting rationalism of his uncle, fourteen-year-old Francis Tarwater undergoes a terrifying trial of faith when he is commanded to baptize his idiot cousin.

The nine stories in Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965) show O’Connor’s powers at their height. The title story is a terrifying, heart-rending drama of familial and racial misunderstanding. “Revelation” and “The Enduring Chill” probe further into conflicts between parental figures and recalcitrant offspring, where as much tension is generated from quiet conversation as from the physical violence of gangsters and fanatics.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
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  1. Print length
    1300 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Library of America
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 1988
  5. Dimensions
    5.08 x 1.57 x 8.14 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0940450372
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0940450370
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, on March 25, 1925, and was raised as a devout Roman Catholic in Milledgeville, Georgia. Upon graduation from the Graduate Program of the Women’s College of Georgia, O’Connor attended the writing program at the State University of Iowa, receiving her MFA in 1947. Among the strongest influences on O’Connor’s work were the writings of William Faulkner and Nathanael West, from whom she derived her conception of the grotesque in literature. Following the publication of numerous short stories in literary journals, O’Connor’s first novel, Wise Blood, was published in 1952. Suffering from a hereditary rheumatic ailment, she spent the next twelve years writing at the family farm in Milledgeville under the care of her mother, Regina, and the strictest medical super vision. A Good Man is Hard to Find, a collection of short stories, was published in 1955, and another novel, The Violent Bear It Away, appeared in 1960. Though seriously ill, O’Connor made an extensive series of lecture tours, received an honorary degree from Smith College in 1963, and that same year, won first prize in the annual O’Henry short story awards (as she had previously done in 1956). After her death on August 3, 1964, another collection of short stories, Everything That Rises Must Converge, was published (1965), as well as a volume of unpublished lectures and essays and various critical articles, Mystery and Manners (1969).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Library of America; First Edition (September 1, 1988)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 1300 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0940450372
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0940450370
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.78 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 1.57 x 8.14 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 432 ratings

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Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor

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Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925, the only child of Catholic parents. In 1945 she enrolled at the Georgia State College for Women. After earning her degree she continued her studies on the University of Iowa's writing program, and her first published story, 'The Geranium', was written while she was still a student. Her writing is best-known for its explorations of religious themes and southern racial issues, and for combining the comic with the tragic. After university, she moved to New York where she continued to write. In 1952 she learned that she was dying of lupus, a disease which had afflicted her father. For the rest of her life, she and her mother lived on the family dairy farm, Andalusia, outside Millidgeville, Georgia. For pleasure she raised peacocks, pheasants, swans, geese, chickens and Muscovy ducks. She was a good amateur painter. She died in the summer of 1964.

Photo by Cmacauley [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
432 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Paul Miller
5.0 out of 5 stars The Comforts of Home
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2024
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Flannery O'Connor's "The Comforts of Home"
Star Drake or Sarah Ham a walking syndrome
To Thomas her intimate grin a simper satanic
His mom was told Sarah was a Nimpermaniac
Thomas was not the breed to "When in Rome"

Was her writing about a nymphomaniac a lark
Or did Flannery with this story jump the shark
His mom took Sarah home in her heart charity
Saint Thomas a highness he saw only vulgarity
To him charity had limits Sarah was an anarch

At night she goes into his bedroom in the nude
Thomas gets a chair and lion tames her so rude
A nymphomaniac he says she is a moral moron
What if you were nimpermaniac not a paragon
His mom asked him that it ruins Thomas mood

Red pocketbook had her odor and skin-like feel
Wincing he thrust in the gun seeking to conceal
Sarah saw phallic gun alerts his mom no quibble
A scuffle and Thomas fires hitting mom the sybil
A sheriff arrives and to him the scene does appeal

*
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Tess
5.0 out of 5 stars "The Library of America" edition and this gift to O'Connor's writings
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2011
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I was surprised to find a postcard inside the book about The Library of America which is a nonprofit publisher who compiles the great works of authors that may be difficult to find under one cover. This, indeed, is a worthy cause. Keep that in mind when you read criticism of the format and indexing of this book, as this book is a product of that publisher. This book was very affordable - no one paid a fortune to buy it.

I often find it difficult to find a complete works which is really a complete works. This edition is full of her work, essays, lectures and letters. If you are someone who appreciates her work, this is indeed a gift. Pawing through a book isn't the most difficult thing to do so if you are considering this edition, please do not be put off by that.

If you are not a fan of Flannery O'Connor, then you are not a fan. I learned of her work in college and her work is disturbing and that is the point. Underneath the disturbing are characters who learn all too late of their bigotry, hatefulness and the other themes she writes about. That style and content is what distinguishes her and makes her worthy of study as one of the best southern writers.

I hope this review helps anyone who considers buying this book.
14 people found this helpful
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Giannuzzo
5.0 out of 5 stars Genius from Georgia.
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2020
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Flannery O'Connor was a shy young woman from rural Georgia. As a little girl she got into some newsreel footage for teaching her chicken to walk backwards. She was afflicted with Lupus, and she was a serious Roman Catholic in the middle of the Protestant Bible Belt. So she was removed from the ordinary social life of her neighbors. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She became a sensitive, objective observer of her neighbors. Their sincerely held fundamentalist beliefs, their often unsuccessful attempts to reconcile those religious convictions with their strong passions and often violent emotions. What makes her writing so successful is that she is not a satirist, She is not ridiculing these people. She is deeply sympathetic to them. She is much more critical of those who ridicule those beliefs or attempt to "rise above them". I don't know how she is taught in today's "woke" uniiversities. . Maybe she doesn't fit in. If not it's the students' loss
I haven't gotten deeply into her two novels., but I have read most of her short stories. As a short story writer her closest parallel is Faulkner In my view she is on a level with him. She is as stunning in her own different way as Hemingway or Henry James or any of the great masters of that art form. If you read her be prepared to check any comfortable politically correct assumptions at the door.
34 people found this helpful
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Daniel
5.0 out of 5 stars Remember Bookmark Ribbons?
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2020
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Do you appreciate books that, when laid on the table, lay open to the page of your choosing? Hands-free reading, I think they call it. It’s nice, and it doesn’t seem to happen much anymore. This volume, like everything in this series, is one of those rare books. Very easy to cozy up with.

Unless the thought of cozying up to Flannery O’Connor disturbs you. Which it well might. Ms. O’Connor got under my skin years ago and she’s still there, asking me questions and making me smile.

Buy this book.
8 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Luciano Machado Tomaz
5.0 out of 5 stars Os grandes títulos de uma das maiores romancistas do século XX
Reviewed in Brazil on September 14, 2023
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Excelente edição.
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Rodrigue Audet
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect
Reviewed in Canada on October 20, 2020
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Brand new and impeccably wrapped. 5 stars well deserved. Many thanks.
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Andrea Grain
5.0 out of 5 stars Toso salió bien.
Reviewed in Mexico on March 9, 2018
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Llegó muy rápido. La editorial es muy buena, un excelente producto. Totalmente recomendable. Además es una edición muy bonita, con páginas súper finas y pasta dura como libro antiguo.
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Cord Christopher Allers
5.0 out of 5 stars Es gibt ein Moment der Gnade...
Reviewed in Germany on October 3, 2019
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Hohen und Tiefen des Lebens... Und trotz allem Elend die sinngebende Wendung. Ein Geschenk, kein Verdienst.
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Bill Evershed
5.0 out of 5 stars All her stories and novels, and a generous selection of essays and letters.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2018
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In Flannery O'Connor's fiction, the southern states of the USA become the stage for the playing out of tragi-comic events, illuminated by her deeply-held Catholic beliefs. Her dialogue is often hilarious - these are funny stories, even when they end in death. If you've seen "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", you'll know it's based (quite vaguely) on the Odyssey, but the atmosphere of southern weirdness is right out of O'Connor. The generous selection of her letters gives her own witty take on what she was writing - while living with debilitating illness leading to an early death.
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