Flannery O’Connor’s Real Estate: Farming Intellectual Property

Carol Shloss takes a literal approach to the subject of legacy by exploring and questioning the legal nature of Flannery O’Connor’s literary estate, a hot topic among many O’Connor scholars. Using “A Circle in the Fire” as a structural metaphor, Shloss argues that the disputes over ownership and property that are present in O’Connor’s fiction echo the reality of Flannery O’Connor’s personal literary estate. Shloss draws on extensive archival research in order to trace the history of O’Connor’s literary estate since the author’s death, while exploring the meaning of property in O’Connor’s work and positing how O’Connor’s writing itself becomes a type of property. Following the succession of O’Connor’s literary executors, Shloss identifies a tendency to move away from creativity about O’Connor and toward an enshirement of her image by a small number of people. Shloss argues that in the end, relaxing the copyright restrictions on O’Connor’s archive would best carry out the wishes of the author.