The Complete Stories (FSG Classics)

The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's monumental contribution to American fiction. There are thirty-one stories here, including twelve that do not appear in Everything That Rises Must Converge and A Good Man is Hard to Find, the only short story collections O'Connor put together during her short lifetime. O'Connor published her first story, "The Geranium," in 1946, while she was a student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Arranged chronologically, this collection shows that her last story, "Judgement Day," sent to her publisher shortly before her death, is a brilliantly transfigured version of "The Geranium." With an introduction by O'Connor's longtime friend and editor, Robert Giroux, The Complete Stories reveals a lively, penetrating talent that has given us some of the most powerful and disturbing fiction of the twentieth century.