The Old Order: Stories of the South

First edition cover art
Author	Katherine Anne Porter
Language	English
Publisher	Harvest Books (Harcourt, Brace and Company)
Publication date	1955
Media type	Print (paperback)
ISBN	978-1-59853-029-2
OCLC	2008927625

The Old Order: Stories of the South is a collection of nine works of short fiction and a short novel by Katherine Anne Porter, published in 1955 by Harvest Books, a paperback subsidiary of Harcourt, Brace and Company. The works selected for this volume are assembled from Porter's previously published material.^[1]

Stories

The short fiction that comprises The Old Order: Stories of the South are reprints of previously published work by Porter. The first six stories, organized under the heading The Old Order, a story sequence concerns the character Miranda Gay, as does the short novel "Old Mortality."^[2] "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall", "He" and "Magic" first appeared in Flowering Judas (1930).^[3] "Old Mortality" was originally collected in Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels (1939).

The Old Order

• "The Source" (Accent, Spring 1941)
• "The Journey" (The Southern Review, Winter 1936)
• "The Witness" (Virginia Quarterly Review, January 1935)^[4]
• "The Circus" (The Southern Review, July 1935)
• "The Last Leaf" (Virginia Quarterly Review, January 1935)^[5]
• "The Grave" (Virginia Quarterly Review, April 1935)

from Flowering Judas and Other Stories (1935)

• "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
• "He"
• "Magic"

from Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels (1939).

• "Old Mortality"

Reception

Porter was praised for writing with an especially human style. In addition to that her stories had a wonderful simplicity to them that also reflected depth in a unique way. The Old Order contained many short stories that would win her a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1966. This collection of stories served to further her fame and increase her popularity. These stories really provide a window into life in the American south at the turn of the twentieth century.^[6]

Literary critic Howard Moss in The New York Times Book Review commented:

The closest thing to a spokesman Porter allows herself is a woman called Miranda...found in the eight reminiscences of the South that were originally published in The Leaning Tower."—Literary critic ^[7]