The Katherine Anne Porter Correspondence Collection

The Katherine Anne Porter Correspondence collection features material written by American author Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) from the archival holdings in Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Maryland. 

About the Katherine Anne Porter Correspondence Collection 

Katherine Anne Porter is known primarily for her short stories and novel, Ship of Fools, but also published nonfiction. Porter’s correspondence documents her life and her career as writer, provides context and resources for the study of her work, and shares insightful perspectives on many cultural and historical events of the twentieth century. 

Porter was in New York City throughout the 1920s, in Mexico during the retrenchment after the Revolution ended in 1920, in Germany when the Nazis were beginning to gain power, in Paris with other expatriates in the 1930s, and in Washington, D.C. during World War II and during the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Her friends and acquaintances included fellow writers, publishers, artists, cultural figures, and politicians.

This digitized collection of Porter’s correspondence includes sources for literary study and accounts of political, social, and cultural history she experienced that are of interest to members of the general public as well as to scholars in a wide range of academic disciplines. The vast majority of included materials are typewritten letters, often with handwritten notes added in the margins. The digitized collection also includes handwritten letters, as well as picture postcards, telegrams, greeting cards, annotated newspaper and periodical clippings, sketches, and more.

Browse the Katherine Anne Porter Correspondence Collection