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Katherine Anne Porter

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Template:Short description Template:Similar names Template:Infobox writer Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in the United States that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. In 1966, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction<ref name="pulitzer" /> and the U.S. National Book Award<ref name="nba1966" /> for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.

BiographyEdit

Early lifeEdit

Katherine Anne Porter was born in Indian Creek, Texas, as Callie Russell Porter to Harrison Boone Porter and Mary Alice (Jones) Porter. Although her father claimed maternal descent from American frontiersman Daniel Boone, Porter herself altered this alleged descent to be from Boone's brother Jonathan as "the record of his descendants was obscure, so that no-one could contradict her". This relationship was unfounded.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Porter was enthusiastic about her own genealogy and family history, and spent years constructing a "quasi-official" version of her ancestry alleging descent from a companion of William the Conqueror,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> although "most of the genealogical connections she boasted did not exist."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The writer O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) was claimed as her father's second cousin,<ref name="nyt">Johnston, Laurie. "Katherine Anne Porter Dies at 90; Won a Pulitzer for Short Stories". The New York Times, September 19, 1980. Template:Subscription required</ref> but later research established that "except the accident of her name", there was no connection. Despite her focus on her family history, Porter failed to identify her relationship to Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States, his grandmother being the sister of Porter's uncle-by-marriage.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The rest of Porter's family did not take her genealogical embellishments seriously, considering them to be part of her character as an "accomplished raconteur".<ref>Katherine Anne Porter and Texas- An Uneasy Relationship, Clinton Machann and William Bedford Clark, Texas A&M University Press, 1990, p. xix</ref>

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In 1892, when Porter was two years old, her mother died two months after giving birth. Porter's father took his four surviving children (an older brother had died in infancy) to live with his mother, Catherine Ann Porter, in Kyle, Texas. The depth of her grandmother's influence can be inferred from Porter's later adoption of her name. Her grandmother died while taking 11-year-old Callie to visit relatives in Marfa, Texas.

After her grandmother's death, the family lived in several towns in Texas and Louisiana, staying with relatives or living in rented rooms. She was enrolled in free schools wherever the family was living, and for a year in 1904 she attended the Thomas School, a private Methodist school in San Antonio, Texas. This was her only formal education beyond grammar school.

Young adulthood and illnessEdit

In 1906, at the age of 16, Porter left home and married John Henry Koontz in Lufkin, Texas. She subsequently converted to his religion, Roman Catholicism.<ref name=DHUnrue2005>Unrue 2005, p. 45.</ref> Koontz, the son of a wealthy Texas ranching family, was physically abusive; once while drunk, he threw her down the stairs, breaking her ankle. They divorced in 1915.<ref name="nyt"/>

In 1914, she escaped to Chicago, where she worked briefly as an extra in movies. She then returned to Texas and worked the small-town entertainment circuit as an actress and singer. In 1915, she asked that her name be changed to Katherine Anne Porter as part of her divorce decree.

Also in 1915, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent the following two years in sanatoria, where she decided to become a writer. It was discovered during that time that she had bronchitis, not TB. In 1917, she began writing for the Fort Worth Critic, critiquing dramas and writing society gossip. Before 1918, Porter was married to, then divorced from, T. Otto Taskett then Carl Clinton von Pless.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1918, she wrote for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado. While there, she almost died during the 1918 flu pandemic. When she was discharged from the hospital, she was frail and completely bald. When her hair grew back, it was white and remained so for the rest of her life.<ref name="nyt"/> Her experience was reflected in her trilogy of short novels, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939), for which she received the first annual gold medal for literature in 1940 from the Society of Libraries of New York University.<ref>Lavers, Norman. "Katherine Anne Porter." Critical Survey Of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition (2010): 1. Biography Reference Center. Web. April 4, 2014.</ref>

New York and Mexico: First literary worksEdit

In 1919, Porter moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and made her living ghost writing, writing children's stories and doing publicity work for a motion picture company. The year in New York had a politically radicalizing effect on her; in 1920, she went to work for a magazine publisher in Mexico, where she became acquainted with members of the Mexican leftist movement, including Diego Rivera. Eventually Porter became disillusioned with the revolutionary movement and its leaders. In the 1920s she also became intensely critical of religion, and remained so until the last decade of her life, when she again embraced the Roman Catholic Church.<ref name=DHUnrue2010>Unrue 2005, pp.xv–xx (contains a Katherine Anne Porter chronology).</ref>

Between 1920 and 1930, Porter traveled back and forth between Mexico and New York City and began publishing short stories and essays.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Her first published story was "María Concepción" in The Century Magazine. (In his 1960s novel Providence Island, Calder Willingham had the character Jim fantasize a perfect lover and he called her Maria Concepcion Diaz.)<ref name="nyt"/> In 1930, she published her first short-story collection, Flowering Judas and Other Stories. An expanded edition of this collection was published in 1935 and received such critical acclaim that it alone virtually assured her place in American literature.

In 1924, Porter had an affair with Francisco Aguilera that resulted in pregnancy. In December of that year, Porter gave birth to a stillborn son.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> Some biographers suggest that Porter suffered several miscarriages and had an abortion. During the summer of 1926, Porter visited Connecticut with other writers and artists including Josephine Herbst, John Herrmann, and Ernest Stock, an English painter.<ref name=":0" /> After contracting gonorrhea from Stock, Porter had a hysterectomy in 1927, ending her hopes of ever having a child. Yet Porter's letters to her lovers suggest that she still intimated her menstruation after this alleged hysterectomy. She once told a friend, "I have lost children in all the ways one can."<ref>Unrue 2005, pp. 14, 86.</ref>

Acclaimed writing career and teachingEdit

File:Katherne Anne Porter.jpg
Porter in her writing room.

During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Porter enjoyed a reputation as one of America's most distinguished writers, but her limited output and equally limited sales had her living on grants and advances for most of the era.<ref>"Obituary: Katherine Anne Porter." Variety, September 24, 1980.</ref>

During the 1930s, she spent several years in Europe during which she continued to publish short stories. She married Eugene Pressly, a writer, in 1930. In 1938, upon returning from Europe, she divorced Pressly and married Albert Russel Erskine, Jr., a graduate student. He reportedly divorced her in 1942, after discovering that she was 20 years his senior.<ref group="N">Brewster Ghiselin wrote a poem called "The Ring" that is an allusion to the marriage-suicide.</ref>

In 1941, during a stay at the artists' retreat Yaddo, Porter went on a ride through the rural area south of Saratoga Lake, where she found her future home in Malta. She named the property "South Hill" for several years before selling it to author George F. Willison in 1946.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Porter became an elected member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1943, and was a writer-in-residence at several colleges and universities, including the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and the University of Virginia.<ref>Hathcock, Barrett. "Katherine Anne Porter." Katherine Anne Porter (2005): 1. Biography Reference Center. Web. April 4, 2014.</ref>

Between 1948 and 1958, she taught at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Texas, where her unconventional manner of teaching made her popular with students. In 1959 the Ford Foundation granted Porter $26,000 over two years.<ref name="UofM-KAP in the 1950s">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Katherine Anne Porter Historical Marker.jpg
Katherine Anne Porter historical marker in Kyle, Texas, United States.

Three of Porter's stories were adapted into radio dramas on the program NBC University Theatre. "Noon Wine" was made into an hour drama in early 1948, and two years later, both "Flowering Judas" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" were produced in half-hour dramas on an episode of the hour-long program. Porter herself made two appearances on the radio series, giving critical commentary on works by Rebecca West and Virginia Woolf. In the 1950s and the 1960s, she occasionally appeared on television in programs discussing literature.

Porter published her only novel, Ship of Fools, in 1962; it was based on her memories of a 1931 ocean cruise she took from Vera Cruz, Mexico, to Germany. The novel's success gave her financial security (she reportedly sold the film rights for $500,000). Producer David O. Selznick was after the film rights, but United Artists, who owned the property, demanded $400,000. The novel was adapted for film by Abby Mann; producer and director Stanley Kramer featured Vivien Leigh in her final film performance.<ref group="N">The ensemble cast of Ship of Fools (1965) included Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar Werner, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, José Greco and Heinz Rühmann.<ref name="Articles">Steinberg, Jay. "Articles: Ship of Fools." Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved: October 11, 2013.</ref> </ref>

Despite Porter's claim that after the publication of Ship of Fools, she would not win any more prizes in America, in 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize<ref name=pulitzer/> and the U.S. National Book Award<ref name=nba1966/> for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter. That year she was also appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times from 1964 until 1968.<ref name="nobel">Nomination archive – Katherine Anne Porter nobelprize.org</ref>

In 1966, Porter donated her literary papers to the University of Maryland.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> On her 78th birthday, the Katherine Anne Porter Room opened in McKeldin Library (later moved to Hornbake Library) at the University of Maryland to house many books from Porter's personal library and other items belonging to her.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1977, she published The Never-Ending Wrong, an account of the notorious trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, which she had protested 50 years earlier.

DeathEdit

Porter had a severe stroke in 1977. After being examined by psychiatrists, she was deemed incompetent, and the court appointed her nephew Paul Porter as her guardian.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Porter died in Silver Spring, Maryland, on September 18, 1980, at the age of 90, and her ashes were buried next to her mother at Indian Creek Cemetery in Texas. In 1990, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark number 2905 was placed in Brown County, Texas, to honor Porter's life and career.<ref>"THC-Katherine Anne Porter". Template:Webarchive Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (Texas Historical Commission). Retrieved: February 22, 2011.</ref>

Awards and honorsEdit

WorksEdit

Short story collectionsEdit

  • Flowering Judas (Harcourt, Brace: 1930). Includes eight of Porter's earliest short stories.
  • Flowering Judas and Other Stories (Harcourt, Brace: 1935). Includes the contents of the earlier edition as well as four additional stories.
  • Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels (Harcourt, Brace: 1939). Includes the three stories Porter referred to as short novels: "Old Mortality", "Noon Wine" (American radio, 1948; American TV, 1966; American TV, 1985), and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" (American radio, 1950; Canadian TV, 1963 & British TV, 1964).
  • The Leaning Tower and Other Stories (Harcourt, Brace: 1944). Includes nine of Porter's short stories.
  • The Old Order: Stories of the South (Harcourt, Brace: 1955). Includes ten of Porter's previously published short stories, all of which take place in the American South.
  • The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (Harcourt, Brace: 1964). Includes all twenty-six of Porter's previously published short stories, including the three she preferred to call short novels, as well as four additional stories.

NovelEdit

NonfictionEdit

Posthumous publicationsEdit

  • Letters of Katherine Anne Porter (Atlantic Monthly Press: 1990), edited by Isabel Bayley. Includes portions of over 250 letters Porter wrote to over sixty correspondents between 1930 and 1966.
  • "This Strange, Old World" and Other Book Reviews Written by Katherine Anne Porter (University of Georgia Press, 1991), edited by Darlene Harbour Unrue. Includes almost 50 of the book reviews Porter published in various periodicals during her lifetime.
  • Uncollected Early Prose of Katherine Anne Porter (University of Texas Press: 1993), edited by Ruth M. Alvarez and Thomas F. Walsh. Includes twenty-nine of Porter's prose works of fiction and nonfiction, not included in earlier published editions.
  • Katherine Anne Porter's Poetry (University of South Carolina Press: 1996), edited by Darlene Harbour Unrue. Includes all thirty-two of the poems Porter published in periodicals during her lifetime.
  • Porter: Collected Stories and Other Writings (Library of America: 2008). Includes the full text of "The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter" (Harcourt, Brace 1964) as well as many of the pieces that were included in her two previous collections of nonfiction.
  • Selected Letters of Katherine Anne Porter: Chronicles of a Modern Woman (University Press of Mississippi: 2012), edited by Darlene Harbour Unrue. Includes over 130 complete letters Porter wrote to over seventy correspondents between 1916 and 1979.

Other publicationsEdit

  • My Chinese Marriage by Mae Franking, ghostwritten by Porter (Duffield & Co: 1921).
  • Outline of Mexican Popular Arts and Crafts (Young & McCallister: 1922).
  • Katherine Anne Porter's French Song Book (Harrison of Paris: 1933). Includes seventeen French songs and Porter's English translations.
  • A Christmas Story (Delacorte: 1967). Porter's story, previously published, about her niece Mary Alice Hillendahl.
  • The Never-Ending Wrong (Little, Brown, & Co.: 1977). Porter's reflections upon the 1927 executions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

NotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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BibliographyEdit

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External linksEdit

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