Florence King

Florence King

Florence Virginia King (b. January 5, 1936, Washington, D.C.) is an American novelist, essayist and columnist.

While her early writings focused on the American South and those who live there, much of King's later work has been published in National Review. Until her retirement in 2002, her column in National Review, "The Misanthrope's Corner", was known for "serving up a smorgasbord of curmudgeonly critiques about rubes and all else bothersome to the Queen of Mean", as the magazine put it. After leaving retirement in 2006, she began writing a new column for National Review entitled "The Bent Pin."

King is a traditionalist conservative, but not a "movement conservative," and she objects to much of the populist direction of the contemporary American Right. King labels herself a "misanthrope". She is an active Episcopalian (though she often refers to her agnosticism), a member of Phi Alpha Theta, and a monarchist.