Flannery O’Connor Has Become So Collectible!

A great announcement this week out of Emory University in Atlanta:  The Mary Flannery O’Connor Charitable Trust, the literary estate of influential Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor, has donated a collection of her works and personal items to Emory University.  Emory plans to make the long-hidden literary drafts, journals, letters and personal effects available to the public soon.

Flannery O’Connor described herself as a  “pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I’ll-bite-you complex.”  She never married, instead making her home with her mother.  

The reclusive American novelist  and essayist surrounded herself, not with people, but with peafowl–raising more than 100 of them at her ancestral farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. 

Who Was Flannery O’Connor?

O’Connor was, first and foremost, a Catholic.  Her library contained books on Catholic theology; and she occasionally lectured around the country on faith and literature.  Her own writings, while not overtly religious, are decidedly spiritual–often dragging her characters toward a deeper understanding of life’s meaning–which is, for O’Connor, a deeper understanding of the Catholic Faith.

Fifty years after her death, O’Connor’s short stories and novels  continue to inspire readers for their insights into morality and ethics.

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This week, Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library (MARBL) received the gift from O’Connor’s estate.  Included were more than 600 letters from O’Connor to her mother, unpublished short stories, family photographs, and many never-before-seen writings and drawings.

Also among the treasures in the collection are O’Connor’s personal prayer journal and rosary.

And a pre-iPhone selfie:  Included is a self-portrait taken in a mirror.

The New York Times reported on some of the findings in the boxes:

“Curators at Emory’s Manuscript Archives & Rare Book Library recently offered a reporter a glimpse of some of the materials in those boxes. Among them are early short stories; charming juvenilia, including a hand-lettered children’s book about a goose; rarely seen photographs, including a self-portrait in a mirror, with an enigmatic hint of a smile; and a journal begun in December 1943 and titled “Higher Mathematics,” which wryly reveals Ms. O’Connor’s early acknowledgment of her formidable gifts.

“It is a pity I can’t receive my own letters,” she wrote in a journal entry dated Jan. 22, 1944. “If they produce as much wholehearted approval at their destination as they do at their source, they should indeed be able to keep my memory alive and healthy.”

For a better glimpse of the priceless items contained in the collection,check out this video from the Flannery O’Connor Archive at Emory University.

Among the books by this award-winning author are:
Wise Blood: A Novel
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
A Prayer Journal