Harris, Corra May (White)

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HARRIS, Corra May (White)

Born 17 March 1869, Farm Hill, Georgia; died 9 February 1935, Atlanta, Georgia

Also wrote under: Mrs. L. H. Harris

Daughter of Tinsley R. and Mary Matthews White; married Lundy H. Harris, 1887

Corra May Harris' childhood was spent in rural Georgia. After her marriage to a minister, her experience widened first to the world of a Methodist circuit rider's wife and then to that of a college professor's. The security of these worlds collapsed in 1898 when her husband suffered a mental breakdown and Harris had to assume responsibility for the support of the family. She tried teaching but gladly abandoned that when the publication in a New York magazine, the Independent (18 May 1899), of a letter defending the Southern white position on lynching launched her career as a prolific writer of articles, stories, and reviews for periodicals.

Her first novel, A Circuit Rider's Wife (1910), established both her publishing method and writing style. It was first published in serial form and then as a book. The style Harris established here was to devise a plot that served merely as a frame on which to hang her observations about people, life, love, and morality. The novel tells of Mary Thompson's life as a struggling clergyman's wife. Generously interspersed throughout are Harris' long digressions about the social responsibilities of a rural minister's wife and about the moral irresponsibility of the church hierarchy. This novel was so popular that Harris later wrote two sequels, A Circuit Rider's Widow (1916) and My Son (1921). As the circuit rider's widow, Mary Thompson fondly remembers her life with William and comments about the townspeople of rural Berton, Georgia. In My Son, Mary is the housekeeper and critical observer in the home of her son Peter, a successful Methodist minister. These novels about Mary Thompson were Harris' most successful because Mary caught and held the popular imagination with her down-to-earth wisdom and sprightly comments about both congregation and church hierarchy.

With her second novel, Eve's Second Husband (1911), Harris established another of her major plot lines, namely, a wife's efforts to deal with a problem husband. In this novel, as well as in Happily Married (1920), The Eyes of Love (1922), and The House of Helen (1923), the wife solves problems with an unfaithful or unstable husband, to the accompaniment of Harris' digressions on women, marriage, and husbands. In all these novels, the wife's resourcefulness and steadfastness win the day.

The Recording Angel (1912), Harris' third novel, was the first of her satires. Ruckersville, Georgia, comes under the barbed attack of Amy White, who amuses herself by chronicling the activities of its socially prominent citizens. Another satirical work, The Co-Citizens (1915), deals with the corrupt politics of a small town, against which the "co-citizens" must battle in order to win woman suffrage.

In Search of a Husband (1913) introduces yet another of Harris' themes—the taming and eventual domestication of a wild, misguided young woman by a strong, self-made man. As in this novel, the young women in Making Her His Wife (1918), A Daughter of Adam (1922), and Flapper Anne (1926) all learn that the social values of a large city are inferior to the values of rural Georgia, and in each case it is the strong man who stabilizes the flighty girl.

With My Book and Heart (1924), Harris began a series of books that were more or less autobiographical. The underpinning of autobiography is, however, all that distinguishes these books from her fiction. Harris followed My Book and Heart with As a Woman Thinks (1925) and The Happy Pilgrimage (1927). In all these books, fact forms a loose base for the personal observations and prejudices of a highly opinionated woman.

All of Harris' writing was heavy with personal opinion. What would otherwise be interminable digressions within trite plots is made readable by her frequently witty style, her ironic humor, and her knack for aphoristic turns of phrase. It was this pungent expression of what her readers regarded as her great wisdom that sold her writings. In the last years of her life, as public taste began to change and her conservative morality and moralizing no longer spoke to the mass audience of the periodicals for which she wrote, Harris lost popularity and found it more difficult to publish. The papers of Harris are at the University of Georgia.

Other Works:

The Jessica Letters (with P. E. More, 1904). From Sun-up to Sun-down (with F. H. Leech, 1919).

Bibliography:

Blackstock, W., Writers and Their Critics: Studies in English and American Literature (1955). Talmadge, J. E., Corra Harris: Lady of Purpose (1968).