This e-book contains The Leaning Tower and Other Stories by Katherine Anne Porter. The text is taken from the first printing of The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter published by Harcourt, Brace & World in September 1965.
The Leaning Tower and Other Stories was originally published by Harcourt, Brace & Company in 1944. It contained nine stories: “The Source,” “The Witness,” “The Circus,” “The Journey” (as “The Old Order”), “The Last Leaf,” “The Grave,” “The Downward Path to Wisdom,” “A Day’s Work,” and “The Leaning Tower.” Porter dedicated the collection to her nephew, Corporal Harrison Paul Porter, Jr.
The contents of The Leaning Tower and Other Stories first appeared in books and periodicals as follows:
“The Source,” Accent (Spring 1941); “The Journey” (as “The Old Order”), The Southern Review (Winter 1936); “The Witness” (as “Uncle Jimbilly,” the first item under the heading “Two Plantation Portraits”), Virginia Quarterly Review (January 1935); “The Circus,” The Southern Review (July 1935); “The Last Leaf” (the second item under the heading “Two Plantation Portraits”), Virginia Quarterly Review (January 1935); “The Fig Tree,” Harper’s Magazine (June 1960); “The Grave,” Virginia Quarterly Review (April 1935); “The Downward Path of Wisdom,” Harper’s Bazaar (December 1939); “A Day’s Work,” The Nation (February 10, 1940); “Holiday,” The Atlantic Monthly (December 1960); “The Leaning Tower,” The Southern Review (Autumn 1941).
This volume presents the texts of the printings chosen for inclusion here but does not attempt to reproduce nontextual features of their typographic design. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. Except for clear typographical errors, the spelling and usage of foreign words and phrases are left as they appear in the original texts. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number: 337.17, Grandchildren; 395.15, splender; 399.28, ballons; 421.37, Old; 470.27, tones, with; 481.39, of; 483.10, steer’s; 491.5, it?; 487.20, his agony; 501.6, them!”.