Patricia Highsmith

-
Standard Name: Highsmith, Patricia
Birth Name: Mary Patricia Plangman
Self-constructed Name: Mary Patricia Highsmith
Pseudonym: Claire Morgan
PH , writing from the mid-twentieth century, first in the USA and then in Europe and England, produced short stories and novels, the majority of them variously classifiable as thrillers or suspense fiction, a label which she disliked. Readers, however, have seen her that way. In 1988 most of her books were available in two competing paperback editions, by Heinemann and Penguin . Irony of situation of every kind is her speciality. Among a range of varied and ingenious plots, her favourite theme, as she herself recognised, is a relationship between two men. Her books were translated into many languages and adapted for films by directors in Britain, America, and Europe. European directors who have filmed adaptations of her works include Wim Wenders , René Clément , and Claude Miller .
Waterstone’s Guide to Books. Waterstone and Company.
749-50
Highsmith, Patricia. Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. St Martin’s Press.
138-9
Contemporary Authors. Gale Research.
147
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Gale Research.
102: 219

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Muriel Spark
In Rome she acquired a circle of homosexual and bohemian friends, then a circle including Italian aristocrats. The writer Patricia Highsmith knew her well enough to give her a cat.
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
338, 345-7, 343
Friends, Associates Flannery O'Connor
Others she met at Yaddo included Patricia Highsmith , who admired her seriousness, Elizabeth Hardwick , Robert Lowell , whom she hoped to convert to Catholicism, and Robert and Sally Fitzgerald , whose home she...
Intertextuality and Influence Josephine Tey
JT 's Miss Pym, an amateur psychologist and best-selling author, can be seen as part of a line of spinster detectives which includes Agatha Christie 's Jane Marple and Patricia Highsmith 's Miss Silver. Miss...
Intertextuality and Influence Josephine Tey
Later crime writer Val McDermid discovered this novel, her first by Tey, as a revelation: modern, nuanced, unformulaic, it was unlike its contemporaries but in tune with some successors, like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell
Literary responses Edna O'Brien
In the Times Literary Supplement, Patricia Highsmith nominated the collection as one of the best of the year.
Halio, Jay L., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 14. Gale Research.
578
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
231
Reception Antonia Fraser
Interviewed about this play, AF said: I don't think I could write the way I do without Agatha Christie or Patricia Highsmith .
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(9 November 1985): 20
Textual Features Antonia Fraser
In her detective-story guise, Fraser sees herself as part of a women's tradition in the genre, and names as influences a number of writers who are known for interest in human psychology and a high...

Timeline

1 January 1916: The British edition of Vogue (an American...

Building item

1 January 1916

The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast in Hanover Square, London.

Texts

Highsmith, Patricia. A Dog’s Ransom. Heinemann, 1972.
Highsmith, Patricia. A Game for the Living. Harper, 1958.
Highsmith, Patricia. Carol. Bloomsbury, 1990.
Highsmith, Patricia. Deep Water. Heinemann, 1958.
Highsmith, Patricia. Edith’s Diary. Heinemann, 1977.
Highsmith, Patricia. Found in the Street. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986.
Highsmith, Patricia. Little Tales of Misogyny. Heinemann, 1977.
Highsmith, Patricia. Mermaids on the Golf Course, and Other Stories. Heinemann, 1985.
Highsmith, Patricia, and Doris Sanders. Miranda the Panda Is on the Veranda. Coward-McCann, 1958.
Highsmith, Patricia. People Who Knock on the Door. Heinemann, 1983.
Highsmith, Patricia. Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. St Martin’s Press, 1990.
Highsmith, Patricia. Ripley Under Water. Bloomsbury, 1991.
Highsmith, Patricia. Ripley’s Game. Knopf, 1974.
Highsmith, Patricia. Slowly, Slowly in the Wind. Heinemann, 1979.
Highsmith, Patricia. Small g: a summer idyll. Bloomsbury, 1995.
Highsmith, Patricia. Strangers on a Train. Harper and Brothers, 1950.
Highsmith, Patricia. Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes. Bloomsbury, 1987.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder. Heinemann, 1975.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Black House, and Other Stories. Heinemann, 1981.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Blunderer. Coward-McCann, 1954.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Boy Who Followed Ripley. Lippincott and Crowell, 1980.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Cry of the Owl. Harper and Row, 1962.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Glass Cell. Doubleday, 1964.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Price of Salt. Coward-McCann, 1952.
Highsmith, Patricia. The Snail-Watcher, and Other Stories. Doubleday, 1970.