Flannery O’Connor Collection

Explore the rich tradition of Catholic literature with Bishop Barron's recommendations for significant and influential books. These titles have transformed cultures and proven essential to those seeking to encounter God as revealed in Jesus Christ through His Church.

Each book is elegantly bound and includes a ribbon bookmark as well as a foreword and charcoal sketch of the author by Bishop Barron!

These works will not only enrich your life, but you will be proud to display them in your home or office.

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"As becomes unmistakably clear as you read through this collection, Flannery O’Connor was not only a masterful teller of tales; she was also one of the most perceptive literary theorists of the twentieth century. She once famously defined herself as a “hillbilly Thomist,” and the aesthetics of St. Thomas Aquinas do indeed inform the way she thought about her own work. "

- Bishop Barron

Includes:

PART ONE .......................................1 

Short Story The Peeler 3 

Letter On Being a “Hillbilly Thomist” 23 

Letter On St. Thomas Aquinas 27 

Essay Novelist and Believer 31 

PART TWO ...................................... 41 

Short Story A Good Man Is Hard to Find 43 

Letter On “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and 

the Incarnation 61 

Letter On Truth and Emotion 63 

Essay A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable 67 

PART THREE .................................... 73 

Short Story The Displaced Person 75 

Letter On Literature and Poetry 121 

Letter On Her Peafowl 125 

Essay King of the Birds 127 

iii 

PART FOUR .................................... 139 

Short Story A Temple of the Holy Ghost 141 

Letter On “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” and 

the Eucharist 155 

Letter On Church Teaching 159 

Essay The Church and the Fiction Writer 165 

PART FIVE ..................................... 173 

Short Story Good Country People 175 

Letter On Atheists and Protestants 199 

Letter On Nihilism and Her Literary Influences 201 

Essay Some Aspects of the Grotesque in 

Southern Fiction 205 

PART SIX ...................................... 215

novel The Violent Bear It Away 217 

Letter On the Devil and the Offer of Grace 369 

Letter On Tarwater and the Violent 371 

Essay The Regional Writer 373 

PART SEVEN ................................... 379 

Short Story Everything That Rises Must Converge 381 

Letter On Human Nature and Sin 399 

Letter On Realism and Redemption 403 

Essay The Fiction Writer & His Country 407 

iv 

PART EIGHT.................................... 415 

Short Story Revelation 417 

Letter On “Revelation” and Her Illness 441 

Letter On Saint Raphael 443 

Essay In the Devil’s Territory 445