Carson McCullers Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Standalone Novels
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter | (1940) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Reflections in a Golden Eye | (1941) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Member of the Wedding | (1946) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Ballad of the Sad Café | (1951) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Square Root of Wonderful | (1958) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Clock Without Hands | (1961) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
Sucker | (1986) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud | (1989) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Haunted Boy | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Collections
Sweet As a Pickle and Clean As a Pig | (1964) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Mortgaged Heart | (1970) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Shorter Novels And Stories Of Carson Mc Cullers | (1972) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Collected Stories | (1987) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Publication Order of Best American Short Stories Books
The Best Short Stories of 1915 | (1916) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1916 | (1916) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1917 | (1917) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1918 | (1918) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1919 | (1919) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1921 | (1921) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1922 | (1922) | |
The Best Short Stories of 1923 | (1923) | |
The Best Short Stories 1924 | (1924) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1925 | (1925) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1926 | (1926) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1927 | (1927) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1928 | (1928) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1929 | (1929) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1930 | (1930) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1931 | (1931) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1932 | (1932) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1933 | (1933) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1934 | (1934) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1935 | (1935) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1936 | (1936) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1937 | (1937) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1938 | (1938) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
50 Best American Short Stories, 1915-1939 | (1939) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1939 | (1939) | |
The Best Short Stories of 1940 | (1940) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1941 | (1941) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1942 | (1942) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1943 | (1943) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1944 | (1944) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1945 | (1945) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1946 | (1946) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1947 | (1947) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1948 | (1948) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1949 | (1949) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1950 | (1950) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1951 | (1951) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1952 | (1952) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1953 | (1953) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1955 | (1955) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1956 | (1956) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1957 | (1957) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1958 | (1958) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1959 | (1959) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1960 | (1960) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1961 | (1961) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1962 | (1962) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1963 | (1963) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1964 | (1964) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1965 | (1965) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1966 | (1966) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1967 | (1967) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1968 | (1967) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories of 1969 | (1969) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1970 | (1970) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1971 | (1971) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1972 | (1972) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1973 | (1973) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1974 | (1974) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best of Best American Short Stories 1915-1950 | (1975) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1975 | (1975) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1976 | (1976) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1977 | (1977) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1978 | (1978) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1979 | (1979) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1980 | (1980) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1981 | (1981) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1982 | (1982) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1983 | (1983) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1984 | (1984) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1985 | (1985) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1986 | (1986) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1987 | (1987) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1988 | (1988) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1989 | (1989) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties | (1990) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1990 | (1990) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1991 | (1991) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1992 | (1992) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1993 | (1993) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1994 | (1994) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1995 | (1995) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1996 | (1996) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1997 | (1997) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1998 | (1998) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1999 | (1999) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2000 | (2000) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories of the Century | (2000) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2001 | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2002 | (2002) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2003 | (2003) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2004 | (2004) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2005 | (2005) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2006 | (2006) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2007 | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1921, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories1921 | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2008 | (2008) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2009 | (2009) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2010 | (2010) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2011 | (2011) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2012 | (2012) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2013 | (2013) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2014 | (2014) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2015 | (2015) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
100 Years of The Best American Short Stories | (2015) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2016 | (2016) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2017 | (2017) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2018 | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2019 | (2019) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2020 | (2020) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2022 | (2022) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Anthology series. |
Publication Order of Anthologies
50 Great Short Stories | (1952) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
50 Great American Short Stories | (1963) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Stories of the Modern South | (1977) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Growing Up in the South: An Anthology of Modern Southern Literature | (1991) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Carson McCullers was a literary fiction author from Columbus who made her name writing some very popular collections of short stories and novels. She was born in 1917 to jewelry store owner Lamar Smith and his wife Vera Marguerite Waters.
Since she was never a remarkable student, she was encouraged to study the piano which she did starting from age ten. But when she got ill with rheumatic fever, she had to give up the dream of becoming a concert pianist. She no longer has the strength for a concert career or the rigors of practice.
While she was recovering from her illness, she got into reading and it was this time that she started dreaming of becoming an author. Surprisingly, she moved to New York City and attended the Juilliard School of Music as a seventeen year old.
But what her parents did not know is that she was studying creative writing at New York University’s Washington Square College and New York’s Columbia University.
She published “Wunderkid,” her first short story, in 1936 and has never looked back since.
In 1937, Carson McCullers got married to James Reeves McCullers who she met while he was stationed at Fort Benning. However, the marriage was doomed from the start by sexual ambivalence and alcoholism. Things were made worse by the fact that her husband was always envious of McCullers’ creative capacities.
During a separation from Reeves in 1940, she started living at Brooklyn Heights where she met the likes of WH Auden the British poet and the literary editor of “Harper’s Bazaar” George Davis.
The residential building would then become the center of a bohemian artistic and literary constellation that included Oliver Smith, Gypsy Rose Lee, Richard Wright, Peter Pears, and Benjamin Britten.
In 1941, Reeves and McCullerw who were both bisexual fell in love with David Diamond, the American composer. The love triangle is expressed in the love triangle theme in several of her short stories and plays.
When she lost her father in 1944, McCullers moved to Nyack, New York with her mother and sister. It was here in a house purchased by her mother that spent much of the rest of her life.
Carson McCullers’submitted six chapters and an outline of her debut work “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and got an advance of $500 and a contract from Houghton Mifflin in 1938.
The story that had themes of isolation and loneliness that would be prominent in her later work was published in 1940. The work was immediately successful and critics lauded it as one of the best literary fiction works ever written.
McCullers second novel was “Reflections in a Golden Eye” that she published in 1941. Known for her predilection for suprising her readers, this novel focused on the themes of infidelity, voyeurism, repressd homosexuality and obsession.
The work would go on to become popular on the bookshelves even though it received mixed critical reviews.
“The Ballad of the Sad Cafe” which she published in 1951 would be one of her finest creative works that marked her rise to fame.
Carson McCullers’ novel “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” is a work set during World War II in a very small town in Georgia. Mr. Singer a mute and deaf man who has been known to dine at the same New York Cafe every day, provides solace to four people who could not be any more disparate.
His best friends are a black doctor, the cafe’s owner, an alcoholic communist, and a young tomboyish girl eager to bring change to her community in her own way. All of them feel very much out of step with the people around them as they operate at very different levels of vibration.
They typically find solace in talking to Mr Singer who plays chess, shares food and reads their words on their lips. The work follows the five characters over several months, as their lives take unexpected and strange turns that result in some incredible outcomes.
The author and the characters’ stories seem to assert that while some things might not seem like much, it is the intimate, quiet and tiny events that often have the biggest impact on our lives.
Carson McCullers’ work “The Member of the Wedding” is a compelling story that follows the life and times of a twelve year old named Frankie Addams.
The girl has spent much of her life in a small town in rural Georgia where her father was for the most part missing. She is something of an older Scout Finch as her mother also died in childbirth and she is brought up by a father who decided to never get married again.
Since her father is at a loss on how to bring up a girl, much of her upbringing is done by Berenice, their colored housekeeper who provides the cookies and hugs Frankie needs. Still Berenic largely shields her from the world and when she is about to become a young adult, she remains naive.
Nearing puberty, she can still be found going on all manner of adventures with John Henry West, her younger cousin. Since she does not have any family members or female members that could bring her up to speed on the bees and the birds, she soon finds herself in the unfamiliar role of the misfit in town.
All Berenice Can do is hope that she gets a female friend as soon as possible just so she could live a normal life. It is in this context that she gets involved in the planning of her brother’s wedding.
Her unbridled imagination sees her planning and getting invited to her brother’s honeymoon abroad, where she believes she will have some awesome adventures.
Carson McCullers’ “The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories” is a classic collection of some of her best stories that have intrigued readers for generations. Some of these include the titular work that tells the haunting tale that culminates in an explosive ending.
It was this novel that introduced readers to the inimitable and formidable southern woman named Miss Amelia.
Among other exceptional works in the collection include her first ever published short story Wunderkind. It was a story that she penned as a seventeen year old that featured a musical prodigy who comes to the realization that she is destined to become a great pianist.
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