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; t

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Published 05 January 2005

Citation: Unrue, Darlene Harbour. "Ship of Fools". The Literary Encyclopedia. 5 January 2005.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2087, accessed 9 February 2010.]