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The Lonely Hunter

A Biography of Carson McCullers

Virginia Spencer Carr author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Georgia Press

Published:30th Jun '03

Should be back in stock very soon

The Lonely Hunter cover

This biography provides an in-depth look at Carson McCullers's life, detailing her rise as a literary figure and the complexities she faced. The Lonely Hunter is a compelling read.

Widely regarded as the definitive biography of Carson McCullers, The Lonely Hunter chronicles the life of the celebrated author from her birth in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917 to her passing in upstate New York in 1967. This comprehensive account delves into every significant event and aspect of McCullers's life, offering readers a profound understanding of her journey as a writer. It explores her rise to prominence as a young literary sensation and examines her emotional, artistic, and sexual complexities that shaped her experiences.

The Lonely Hunter paints a vivid portrait of McCullers's life, highlighting her struggles with debilitating illnesses, her travels across America and Europe, and the evolution of her works from their initial drafts to their adaptations in various forms, including stage and film. The biography captures the essence of a woman who was both gifted and tormented, embodying the traits of a tragic figure in the literary world of the mid-20th century.

Virginia Spencer Carr, the author, conducted extensive research to create this enduring portrait. She visited significant locations in McCullers's life, reviewed a vast array of writings about her, and interviewed countless individuals connected to the author. The result is a distinguished and nuanced exploration of McCullers, revealing the brilliance and turmoil that defined her life and work.

Sensitive, balanced, authoritative . . . A work of prodigious research and unblinking honesty—the kind of biography that leaves the reader replete with the sense of having vicariously experienced a life as it was lived.


Fascinating . . . From the pages of The Lonely Hunter emerges the essential spirit of a consequential and controversial American writer.


Carr's biography is full, sympathetic, and frank. She knows Carson McCullers's life and work inside out.


Likely to become the definitive biography of McCullers


Admirable . . . Offers the best picture we are likely to get of an almost incomprehensibly neurotic personality.


Virginia Spencer Carr’s excellent biography of McCullers tracks the young writer’s emotional instability at the time of the composition of this second novel [Reflections in a Golden Eye], much of which was written at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, itself a literary hotbed of unstable emotions.

* The New York Revi

ISBN: 9780820325224

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 37mm

Weight: 875g

676 pages