Early Life
Born in Washington, D.C. to a British father and an American mother (Herbert Frederick King and Louise Ruding King), Florence King grew up in the District with her parents, a sister, her maternal grandmother and her grandmother's maid. Each of these people influenced her development as a person. In particular, her grandmother required high standards of behavior from Florence, referring to the family as descendants of Virginia's colonial elite. In many of her writings, King often refers to the comical contradictions between the material reality of her upbringing (lower middle class) and the snobbish behavior of her grandmother.
In 1957, King received her B.A. in history from American University in Washington D.C., where she was inducted into Phi Alpha Theta. She also attended the University of Mississippi as a graduate student, but did not complete her M.A. degree after the traumatic loss of her former girlfriend in a car crash.
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