Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Circle in the Fire" was originally published in 1954 in Kenyon Review. At the time of its publication, O'Connor was on the verge of being recognized as one of America's greatest short-story writers, her first story having been published in 1946. In 1955 "A Circle in the Fire" appeared in three volumes, which together assured O'Connor's place in the literary canon: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (O'Connor's first published collection); Prize Stories 1955: The O. Henry Awards; and The Best American Short Stories of 1955. The story later appeared in the posthumous collection The Complete Stories, which was published in 1971.

Though "A Circle in the Fire" is not among O'Connor's best-known stories, it is characterized by the same grotesque characters, religious undercurrents, and dark humor found in her famed works "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," and "Everything That Rises Must Converge." "A Circle in the Fire" is set on a farm—probably in Georgia, since the visitors live in Atlanta—and seems to be set at the time of its writing.