Katherine Anne Porter, The Old Order

Darlene Harbour Unrue (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1935

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
Story Collection

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In the fall of 1927 and the early winter of 1928, Katherine Anne Porter decided to research her ancestral history as a first step toward writing an autobiographical novel that she envisioned as “the story of America”. She tentatively called her novel “Many Redeemers”, and it was to have three parts: “Legends of the Ancestors”, “Midway of this Mortal Life”, and “The Present Day”. The first part, “Legends of the Ancestors”, comprising her genealogical research into the Porter and Skaggs families, her childhood memories, and tales told by her paternal grandmother, Catharine Ann Skaggs Porter, resolved itself as seven stories and sketches: “The Source”, “The Journey”, “The Witness”, “The Circus”, “The Last Leaf”, “The Fig Tree”, and “The…

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1040 words

Citation: Unrue, Darlene Harbour. "The Old Order". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 April 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16754, accessed 26 November 2024.]

Katherine Anne Porter, The Old Order

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