Letters to Betty Hester, 1955-1964.

ArchivalResource

O'Connor, Flannery. Letters to Betty Hester, 1955-1964.

Letters to Betty Hester, 1955-1964.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/173862896

The collection includes a significant cache of letters from Flannery O'Connor to Betty Hester which spans nine years, from 1955 to 1964, and offers insight into O'Connor's approach to her faith and to her writing. There are approximately 250 letters and the majority of them are written from Milledgeville at a rate of 2-3 times a month. Reflecting the intellectual nature of their exchanges, the letters contain references to writers, philosophers, and psychologists, including Thomas Aquinas, Sigmund Freud, Caroline Gordon, Graham Greene, Baron Friedrich von Hugel, Henry James, Robert Lowell, Francois Mauriac, Katherine Anne Porter, Bryon Reece, and Simone Weil. In addition to the dominant themes of theology, writing and literature, O'Connor addresses a spectrum of topics, including various friendships, familial relationships, speaking engagements, exchanges of books and clippings, feminism, and life on a rural farm. The collection also contains manuscripts including one short story by Betty Hester titled "The Joys of the Fittest," and two short stories by O' Connor titled "Greenleaf" and "A View of the Woods". Also present is a separate folder of clippings O'Connor mailed to Hester as individual items of interest.

1 linear ft. : (2 boxes)

Emory University. Special Collections and Archives