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by: Katherine Anne Porter
List Price: $17.00Amazon.com's Price: $10.72 You Save: $6.28 (37%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780151707553
ISBN: 0151707553
Label: Harcourt
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 216
Publication Date: June 18, 1990
Publisher: Harcourt
Sales Rank: 66392
Studio: Harcourt
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
First published in 1939, these three short novels secured the author’s reputation as a master of short fiction.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Uncritcally Accepted Myth Is A Heavy Burden
In PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER, Katherine Anne Porter creates a world of two universes; one contains the semi-autobiographical life of Porter's alter-ego, Miranda, who is seen first as a very young girl in the first novella, "Old Mortality," then later as an adult woman in the third entrant, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." The third novella is "Noon Wine," which is linked to the other two in its focus on a protagonist whose choice of life is severely restricted by the need to conform to society's restrictions. ... Read More
Rating:  - Beautiful and sad
I was unfamiliar with Katherine Anne Porter before reading this book and am now glad I picked it up. Porter has an amazing way with words and with characterization. With only a few sentences you feel as if you know the people in her stories. This book contains 3 short novels of which I think Pale Horse, Pale Rider is the best. Miranda is a young woman working at a newspaper during the last year of the first world war and of the tragic flu epidemic which killed millions. She goes from show to show every ... Read More
Rating: - Three gems in a jewel box
Katherine Anne Porter writes like a lapidary; each sentence is like a polished jewel, every word is perfect. "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" is a compilation of three novellas: "Old Mortality", seen through the eyes of Maria and Miranda Rhea, two children home for the weekend from their stultifying boarding school, is the tale of the family black sheep, a beautiful young cousin of easy virtue who continues to fascinate and frustrate her extended family long after her early death; "Noon Wine" shows us a Texas ... Read More
Rating: - Short fiction the way it should be.
Katherine Anne Porter displays the human experience with turns of phrase that catch your breath. The awkward spinster cousin blooms "like a dry little plant set out in a gentle rain" when her critical mother leaves the room. A woman delirious with influenza falls into a sleep "that was not sleep but clear evening light in a small green wood..."
I thought Flannery O'Connor had ruined all other southern short fiction writers for me, but Porter meets O'Connor's deft character portraits, with their ... Read More
Rating: - A great work of art which deserves to be far more well-known
I first read this book about thirty-five years ago, as a young teenager. At the time, I didn't really know what it was about, lacking the historical background to understand World War I, and having no knowledge whatsoever of the widespread influenza epidemic of 1918. Nevertheless, the memory of Porter's shimmering prose somehow stayed with me, leading me to read the story once again, this time as an adult, and to finally comprehend it better. In fact, I have reread it several times over the years, always ... Read More
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