1925 - Mary Flannery O'Connor is born on March 25, the only child of Edward Francis O'Connor and Regina Cline O'Connor. The O'Connors live at 207 E. Charlton Street in Savannh, Georgia on Lafayette Square, just across from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
1931 - Mary Flannery O'Connor enters the first grade at St. Vincent's Grammar School for Girls in Savannah.
1936 - Mary Flannery O'Connor transfers to Sacred Heart Grammar School in Savannah.
1938 - Edward O'Connor becomes a zone real estate appraiser for the Federal Housing Administration and the family moves to Atlanta, Georgia, living at 2525 Potomac Street. Mary Flannery attends St. Joseph's Parochial School and North Fulton High School.
1940 - Because of Edward O'Connor's failing health from systemic lupus erythematosus, the family moves to Milledgeville, Georgia into the Cline family home located at 311 W. Greene Street, where they live with Mary Flannery's aunts, Mary and Katie Cline. Mary Flannery enrolls in Peabody High School on the campus of Georgia State College for Women (GSCW).
1941 - Edward O'Connor dies on February 1 from complications of lupus.
1942 - Mary Flannery O'Connor graduates from Peabody High School and enrolls in summer classes at GSCW.
1945 - Mary Flannery O'Connor receives her BA degree in social science from GSCW in June and leaves to attend the State University of Iowa, where she receives a scholarship in journalism. Unhappy in this program, she enrolls in the Writers' Workshop, directed by Paul Engle. She now signs all her work and refers to herself simply as Flannery O'Connor.
1947 - O'Connor receives her Master of Fine Arts degree from Iowa on June 1 and begins working on her first novel. She remains at Iowa on a Rinehart fellowship until June of 1948.
1948 - O'Connor receives an invitation to attend the Yaddo Foundation artists' retreat near Saratoga Springs, New York, where she stays through June and July and returns to reside from September through February 1949.
1949 - O'Connor lives in New York City through August and then moves to Ridgefield, Connecticut, to occupy a garage apartment at the home of Robert and Sally Fitzgerald. She continues to work diligently on her first novel, begun in Iowa.
1950 - While traveling to Milledgeville for the Christmas holidays, O'Connor becomes very ill and is hospitalized when she arrives.
1951 - O'Connor is transferred to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta in February, where blood tests confirm that she has lupus. By March she has recovered to the extent that she can return to Milledgeville. Flannery and Regina O'Connor move to the family farm, Andalusia, located four miles north of Milledgeville.
1952 - O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood, is published on May 15.
1955 - O'Connor's first collection of short stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, is published on June 6.
1958 - At the end of April, Flannery and Regina O'Connor travel to Milan, Paris, Lourdes, and Rome. The pilgrimage is a gift from Mrs. Raphael Semmes ("Cousin Katie") of Savannah.
1960 - O'Connor's second novel, The Violent Bear It Away, is published on February 8.
1964 - Flannery O'Connor dies in the Baldwin County (Milledgeville) Hospital shortly after midnight on August 3.
1965 - O'Connor's second collection of short stories, Everything That Rises Must Converge, is published.
1969 - Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, is published.
1971 - Complete Stories is published and wins the National Book Award for Fiction. The award has never before been given to the work of a dead writer.
1979 - The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald, is published to much acclaim and wins the National Book Critics Circle Award.
1988 - Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works, edited by Sally Fitzgerald, is published in the distinguished Library of America series.
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