This “dazzling” National Book Award finalist set aboard an ocean liner in 1931 reflects the passions and prejudices that sparked World War II (San Francisco Chronicle). August 1931. An ocean liner bound for Germany sets out from the Mexican port city of Veracruz. The ship’s first-class passengers include an idealistic young American painter and her lover; a Spanish dance troupe with a sideline in larceny; an elderly German couple and their fat, seasick bulldog; and a boisterous band of Cuban medical students. As the Vera journeys across the Atlantic, the incidents and intrigues of several dozen passengers and crew members come into razor-sharp focus. The result is a richly drawn portrait of the human condition in all its complexity and a mesmerizing snapshot of a world drifting toward disaster. Written over a span of twenty years and based on the diary Katherine Anne Porter kept during a similar ocean voyage, Ship of Fools was the bestselling novel of 1962 and the inspiration for an Academy Award–winning film starring Vivien Leigh. It is a masterpiece of American literature as captivating today as when it was first published more than a half century ago. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Katherine Anne Porter, including rare photos from the University of Maryland Libraries.

The story takes place in the summer of 1931, on board a cruise ship bound for Bremerhaven, Germany. The passenger list is long and portentous, and includes a Spanish noblewoman, a drunken German lawyer, an American divorcee, a pair of Mexican Catholic priests, and a host of others. This "ship of fools" is a crucible of intense experience, out of which everyone emerges forever changed.

A novel recounting the lives and actions of the passengers on a ship en route from Mexico to Germany in 1931.

Containing pieces by distinguished scholars including Darlene Harbour Unrue and Robert Brinkmeyer, this book is the first full investigation of the links between Porter's only novel and European intellectual history. Beginning with Sebastian Brant, author of the late medieval Narrenschiff, whom she acknowledges in her Preface to Ship of Fools, Porter's image of Europe emerges as more complex, more knowledgeable, and more politically nuanced than previous critics of her novel have acknowledged. Ship of Fools is in conversation with Europe's humanistic tradition as well as with the political moments of 1931 and 1962; i.e., the years that elapsed from the novel's conception to its completion. The novel and the 1965 film based upon it intervene into the history of film, the assessment of Weimar Germany, and Porter's clear-eyed judgment of her own times through the lens of her art.

This volume brings together 29 pieces dating from before 1932, none of which appear in her collected works and many of which are published here for the first time. Includes both fiction and essays.

Definitive English language edition of influential (1494) allegorical classic. Sweeping satire of weaknesses, vices, grotesqueries of the day. Includes 114 royalty-free illustrations.