Katherine Anne Porter is best known as a distinguished and prize-winning author of short stories and short novels. Her only long novel,
Ship of Fools, substantially different in texture from the shorter fiction, nevertheless deserves a respected place in the aggregate of her reputation when the novel is rightfully considered for what it is and what it is not.
In the late 1920s Porter conceived a long autobiographical novel whose working title was “Many Redeemers”. It was to have three parts: “Legend and Memory”, “Midway of This Mortal Life”, and “The Present Day”. The first part was to contain her childhood experiences and family legends handed down from her paternal grandmother; the second part was to focus on her experiences in young adulthood; and the third part, which
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Citation: Unrue, Darlene Harbour. "Ship of Fools". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 January 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2087, accessed 27 November 2024.]
