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A Good Man Is Hard to Find
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A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (Women Writers : Text and Contexts) Unknown - 1993

by Flannery O'Connor


About this book

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by American author Flannery O'Connor. The Southern Gothic collection was first published in 1955 by Hartcourt, Brace and Company. The short stories explore O'Connor's grotesque view of life which is often realistic and ultimately hopeful. A Good Man is Hard to Find is her second published work and established O'Connor as a major voice in American literature. Short stories in the collection include "The River," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," and "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" - its namesake.

From the publisher

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is Flannery O'Connor's most famous and most discussed story. O'Connor herself singled it out by making it the title piece of her first collection and the story she most often chose for readings or talks to students. It is an unforgettable tale, both riveting and comic, of the confrontation of a family with violence and sudden death. More than anything else O'Connor ever wrote, this story mixes the comedy, violence, and religious concerns that characterize her fiction.

This casebook for the story includes an introduction by the editor, a chronology of the author's life, the authoritative text of the story itself, comments and letters by O'Connor about the story, critical essays, and a bibliography. The critical essays span more than twenty years of commentary and suggest several approaches to the story--formalistic, thematic, deconstructionist-- all within the grasp of the undergraduate, while the introduction also points interested students toward still other resources. Useful for both beginning and advanced students, this casebook provides an in-depth introduction to one of America's most gifted modern writers.

First Edition Identification

First editions can be identified by the presence of the words "First Edition" on the copyright page as well as a typographic error on page 125 which reads "tyring" instead of "trying."

Details

  • Title A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (Women Writers : Text and Contexts)
  • Author Flannery O'Connor
  • Binding unknown
  • Pages 190
  • Publisher Rutgers University Press
  • Date 1993-07
  • ISBN 9780813519760

About the author

Frederick Asals teaches at New College, the University of Toronto. He is the author of Flannery O'Connor: The Imagination of Extremity and of articles on O'Connor and other American writers.