Selected Bibliography

An autobiography written as a letter to her younger brother John. Conversion story genre of her conversion from Communism to Catholicism. Compiled from articles in America and Preservation of the Faith. Discusses Dostoyevsky’s influence on her life and the lonely experience of her conversion. Reads as a baptized version of The Eleventh Virgin, with emphasis on her religious experience throughout her life. Expounds on such topics as Eucharist, prayer, Marxism, capitalism, free will and St. Teresa of Avila.

Arno Press, 1938. 

The newest edition of this text contains a forward written by Pope Francis.

An excellent companion piece to The Long Loneliness, this book tells the story of the first 30 years of the Catholic Worker movement from 1933-1963. Dorothy's emphasis here is on the varied community members who brought their gifts and talents to the growing Worker movement, and on the persistence of poverty in affluent post-war America.

Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997.

Autobiographical novel of her pre-conversion years, which although a work of fiction, draws from Dorothy's experiences in early adulthood. Begins with family relationships, with emphasis on her mother. Proceeds through the protagonist's radical years with the pacifist, birth control, socialist and suffrage movements, and closes with an abortion and the end of the protagonist's romantic relationship.

New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1924.

Dorothy's spiritual autobiography, which begins with her childhood and pre-conversion youth as a radical journalist. Here, Dorothy consciously situates her writing in the genre of a “Confession,” taking the reader deeper into the interior state of the author than a simple autobiography. Dorothy's intimate writing style invites readers to share and understand her perspective on the relationships and events she details. The Long Loneliness  takes the reader through the events of her daughter Tamar's birth, Dorothy's conversion, her encounter with Peter Maurin, and the first years of the Catholic Worker movement, ending with Peter's death in 1949.

Merrimack, NH: Thomas More Press, 1989.

Written in the 1950’s and eventually published in 1960 by Notre Dame’s Fides Press, after a rejection from her original publisher, Thérèse  is a biography of Dorothy's patron saint. Dorothy felt that the social implications of Day felt that the social implications of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s Little Way had been under-discussed in all previous theological and biographical work, and that the modern world urgently needed the message of the little Carmelite. Dorothy's text emphasizes the role of apparent failure as a channel of God's grace, the necessity of enduring suffering with hope, and the power of small acts of kindness, justice, and peacemaking in building "a world in which it is easier to be good."

Ave Maria Press, 2016.

Collection of Dorothy's correspondence dating from the 1920's to a few months before her death in 1980. Editor Robert Ellsberg begins with an introduction to Dorothy as a letter-writer and organizes each of the six chronological sections around a broad theme. Early letters document Dorothy's relationship with her common-law spouse, Forster Batterham and the ongoing challenges of parenting and family life; the majority of the correspondence focuses on the affairs of the Catholic Worker movement and its spiritual foundations.

Edited by Robert Ellsberg. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2010.

Snippets of Dorothy's writing from a variety of sources, including early "On Pilgrimage" columns. This book contains many narratives of the men and women who came through the Worker as helpers, guests, and community members. The writings collected here reflect her spirit: meditative, ironical, combative, filled with love for the Catholic Worker family, and suffused with her special sense of the 'holy sublimity of the everyday.'

Edited by Robert Ellsberg. Orbis Books, 2005.

Except for The Catholic Worker, the newspaper or magazine Dorothy wrote for most frequently was Commonweal, the oldest Catholic journal of opinion in the United States. This collection of her writings for that publication includes articles, reviews, and letters to the editor.

Edited by Patrick Jordan. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

A condensed and abridged version of the longer Dorothy Day: Writings from Commonweal. Provides a short introduction to Dorothy's prophetic insights and spiritual depth through her writing career.

Edited by Patrick Jordan. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2016.

A year in Dorothy's life through her diary entries. An intimate look at her relationships with her daughter Tamar and her grandchildren on their farm, the concerns of her Catholic Worker community, and her spiritual reflections. This edition contains a forward by Michael Garvey of the South Bend Catholic Worker and an introduction by Mark and Louise Zwick of the Houston Catholic Worker.

New York Catholic Worker Books, 1948. 

A selection of Dorothy Day’s “On Pilgrimage” columns published in The Catholic Worker newspaper during the last decade of her life. Highlights are reports from her travels around the world, including Tanzania and the Soviet Union; arrest with the farmworkers at age 75; a standoff with the IRS over refusal to pay federal income tax; the end of the Vietnam War; speaking at the Eucharistic Congress; opening a new house of hospitality for homeless women; and the slow, inexorable journey toward the culmination of her “pilgrimage” in 1980.

Edited by Robert Ellsberg. New York: Orbis Books, 2022.

Through Dorothy Day’s monthly “On Pilgrimage” columns from The Catholic Worker, this volume offers a unique chronicle on the 1960s, a tumultuous decade marked by the Cuban Revolution, Vatican II, the struggle for Civil Rights, Vietnam protests, the rise of the United Farmworkers, and dramatic cultural change.

Edited by Robert Ellsberg. Orbis Books, 2021.

Biography of Dorothy's friend, mentor, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker, Peter Maurin (1877-1949). Dorothy began writing this book in the 1940's, and by 1947 had assembled a rough manuscript, but it remained unpublished at her death. Historian Francis Sicius later edited and prepared the text for publication, filling in gaps in the narrative where needed with information from Dorothy's other writings. In Dorothy's text, Peter emerges as a contemporary saint and prophet whose message is a challenge and a call to healing for the world.

Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2004.

An immersive collection of Dorothy's literary influences interspersed with her own writing. Collected quotations from Dorothy's favorite novelists, political theorists, and spiritual writers, which she used in her "On Pilgrimage" columns. The Garveys, who together ran a Catholic Worker house in South Bend, IN for many years, intended "to give a sense of the diversity of spiritual and secular reading which nourished both Dorothy Day's spirituality and the Catholic Worker phenomenon" (4).

Edited by Margaret Quigley Garvey and Michael Garvey. Springfield, Ill.: Templegate, 1982.

Edited collection of Dorothy's diary entries from 1934, just after the founding of the Catholic Worker movement, until her death in 1980. These deeply personal writings reveal how Dorothy experienced the major events of her time while simultaneously raising her daughter and leading the extended Catholic Worker family. Details Dorothy's efforts to remain spiritual grounded through disciplines of prayer, reading, and the works of mercy, and her life-long practice of finding God in the people who surrounded her.

Edited by Robert Ellsberg. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 2008.

An intellectual and psychological portrait of Dorothy by her close friend, Robert Coles, a former Catholic Worker volunteer who first came to the Worker as a medical student. This intense portrait is based on many years of conversation and correspondence, as well as tape-recorded interviews with Dorothy towards the end of her life.

Coles, Robert. Radcliffe Biography Series. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1987.

Illustrated study of Dorothy, by former editor of The Catholic Worker, co-founder of Pax Christi-USA, and close friend of Dorothy's, Eileen Egan. Includes photos and drawings of Dorothy throughout her life and of fellow Catholic Workers.

Egan, Eileen. Peacemaker’s Pamphlet Series. Erie, Pa.: Benet Press, 1983.

A joint biography which places Dorothy in the company of three of her contemporaries, fellow 20th century American Catholic writers Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, and Thomas Merton, collectively nicknamed "The School of the Holy Ghost." Focuses on Dorothy's life as a journalist, letter-writer, and diarist informed by her Catholic faith.

Elie, Paul. 1st ed.. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.

Illustrated biography beginning with Dorothy's early adulthood as a radical journalist and social reformer, continuing with her conversion and the founding of the Catholic Worker movement, and ending with her death and the early years of her canonization process. The text draws from Dorothy's personal letter and diaries, which were sealed for the 25 years following her death in 1980.

Forest, Jim. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017.

Illustrated biography of Dorothy by former editor of The Catholic Worker and co-founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Jim Forest. Focuses on Dorothy's pacifist commitment to nonviolent direct action and her frequent arrests in protest of violence and militarism.

Forest, Jim. New York, N.Y.: Paulist Press, 1986.

Part combined biography of Dorothy and her daughter Tamar, part memoir of growing up with these two matriarchs, written by Dorothy's youngest grandchild. Hennessy takes us from Dorothy’s vibrant, fast-paced, and often tragic young adulthood in revolutionary New York City through the founding and maturation of the Catholic Worker movement and the last years of Dorothy's life, when she began to slow down and hand over what she had created to the next generation.

Writing retrospectively, Hennessy is able to speak about the first decades of the Worker in a way that Dorothy herself could not in her published writing from these years. The community often lived in squalid, substandard housing, and some of its members were unstable and vicious. Dorothy’s ability to consistently locate beauty in these circumstances was both a grace and a carefully honed spiritual skill; many faced with the same conditions would have seen only the bedbugs and addictions. Hennessy skillfully intertwines the narrative of the Catholic Worker’s growing pains with Dorothy and Tamar’s changing relationship as Tamar grew into womanhood, married, and became a mother herself.

Hennessy, Kate. First Edition. New York: Scribner, 2017.

Collection of mostly original essays by scholars and Catholic Worker activists which provides a systematic, analytical study of the emergence and nature of pacifism in the Catholic Church in the United States. The collection underscores the pivotal role of Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement in challenging the conventional understanding of just-war principles and the American Catholic Church's identification with uncritical militarism. Also included are a study of Dorothy Day's preconversion pacifism, previously unpublished letters from Dorothy Day to Thomas Merton, Eileen Egan's account of the birth and early years of Pax, the Catholic Worker-inspired peace organization, and in-depth coverage of how the contemporary Plowshares movement emerged from the Catholic Worker movement.

Klejment, Anne, and Nancy L. Roberts.  Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996.

A contemporary, personal reflection on Dorothy’s biography and legacy from the perspective of a young mother, writer, and community activist who grew up in the white evangelical church and wrote this book as an attempt to locate her own place in the wider Christian community. Biography relates anecdotes from Dorothy's early life and focuses on the founding of the Catholic Worker movement. Unruly Saint offers us an example of a caring and committed layperson living a very ordinary family life taking seriously the challenge that Dorothy’s life and legacy offers to her fellow citizens and co-religionists. In Dorothy’s legacy, Mayfield sees a version of Christianity that might be capable of speaking to the condition of the poor.

Mayfield, D.L. Broadleaf Books, 2022.

Situates Dorothy's lived spirituality within the context of twentieth-century intellectual and cultural history. Searching for Christ is an intellectual history, which explores Dorothy's spiritual roots in literature,  Scripture, along with her sensibility and her aesthetic vision. Examines he impact of Christian personalism, monasticism, and the retreat movement on Dorothy's lived expression of faith. Includes a discussion of Dorothy's extensive correspondence with Thomas Merton and a critical analysis of the Lacouture retreat movement. The final chapter discusses friendship as a core component of Dorothy's spirituality, including both her devotion to and enduring friendship withthe saints and her warm relationships with a number of her contemporaries.

Merriman, Brigid O’Shea. Notre Dame Studies in American Catholicism. Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.

Written by history professor and close family friend of Dorothy's daughter Tamar and her children, this text gathers selections from Dorothy's letters and journals.

Miller, William D. 1st ed.. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987.

Examines Dorothy as a moral thinker through the discipline of feminist theological ethics. Discusses Dorothy's mutlifaceted identity as a woman, a mother, a writer, a Catholic, and a radical. O’Connor’s questions center on the tone of Dorothy’s moral discourse, her  understanding/exercise of power and authority, and her own self-reflexive understanding of her underlying moral framework. The text is somewhat limited by its publication prior to the unsealing of Dorothy's personal papers in 2005, which meant that some details of Dorothy's family relationships and history are innacurately reported. Otherwise an excellent introduction to Dorothy's "ethic of care," which informed her moral decision-making throughout her life.

O’Connor, June. Crossroad, 1991.

Stories collected through a set of interviews with Dorothy's closest friends, colleagues, and community members. These oral histories reveal personal anecdotes and glimpses into Dorothy's humanity, as well as the impact she had on those around her. Memories are collected into thematic categories including "Politics and Protest," "Family and Friends," "What Was She Like?" and more.

Riegle, Rosalie G. Pbk. Ed edition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006.