The Mortgaged Heart

This posthumous collection gathers McCullers's shorter writings, edited by her sister Margarita Smith. It includes early short stories, essays and articles, and a few poems. Some pieces reflect on her own craft and on the sources of her fiction, while others show her youthful experiments before she became famous. Readers will find her recurring concerns here in miniature: loneliness, love that goes unanswered and the strangeness of growing up. It is a useful companion for anyone who wants to know more about how she thought and worked.