Flannery O'Connor was born Mary Flannery O'Connor on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. O'Connor preferred to use her middle name rather than her first name. Her father, Edward F. O'Connor, was in the real estate business. Her mother, Regina L. (Cline) O'Connor, came from a prominent Georgia family; Regina's father was a longtime mayor of the small town of Milledgeville, Georgia. The O'Connors were devout Catholics in a region that was at the time overwhelmingly Southern Baptist.

When O'Connor was twelve, her father became ill with lupus, a debilitating blood disease, and the family moved to Milledgeville. O'Connor's father died when she was only fifteen. She graduated from the local public high school and then earned a degree from the Women's College of Georgia (now Georgia College). O'Connor edited the college magazine and won admittance to the famed writers' workshop at the State University of Iowa (now...