The Old Order: Stories of the South

The Old Order: Stories of the South

First edition cover art
Author	Katherine Anne Porter
Language	English
Publisher	Harvest Books (Harcourt, Brace and Company)
Publication date	1955
Media type	Print (paperback)
ISBN	978-1-59853-029-2
OCLC	2008927625

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. 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 provided 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