THE DAYS BEFORE

by Katherine Anne Porter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 1952

A first collection of thirty-three pieces which have appeared in various publications over the past thirty years and repesent the critical interests and personal taste of a writer who is a scrupulous stylist. Acknowledging her preference for the ""conscious, disciplined artist"", it is natural that Henry James, Willa Cather, Katherine Mansfield, Eudora Welty, Virginia Woolf, Rilke, and Edith Sitwell attract a scrutiny which is appreciative as well as evaluative. And the title piece which returns to the childhood of Henry James and refers to the ""first affections and attachments and admirations"" never forgotten is particularly fine. The second section of essays, ""Personal and Particular,"" range from a Louisiana landscape to a rose, from some considerations on love and marriage to the atom bomb- and she concludes the volume with a series of Mexican pieces which include a longer critique of the Mexican revolutionary writer Lizardi.....Katherine Anne Porter is a discriminating writer, for a discriminating audience, and these pieces, fastidious in discernment, subtle in judgment, have a definite destination.

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1952

ISBN: 1151602760

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952

Categories: NONFICTION