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Publicity photograph of Patricia Highsmith, c. 1962
Harper & Brothers publicity photograph, c. 1962 · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Sapphic romance

Patricia Highsmith

1921–1995

Master of the psychological thriller — and author of The Price of Salt (Carol), a landmark lesbian love story.

Born
19 January 1921 · Fort Worth, Texas
Died
4 February 1995 · Locarno, Switzerland
Nationality
American; she lived in England, France and, from 1982, Switzerland
  • psychological thriller
  • lesbian classics
  • The Price of Salt
  • Ripley

A reference author. Valice Press has no connection with Patricia Highsmith, their publishers or their estate. Patricia Highsmith appears here as part of the reading context around the shelf.

Biography

The life, briefly

Patricia Highsmith was born Mary Patricia Plangman in Fort Worth, Texas, and raised mainly in New York City. After graduating from Barnard College in 1942 she wrote comic-book scripts while writing her own stories and novels, and broke through with her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), which Alfred Hitchcock filmed the next year. Her best-known creation is Tom Ripley, the charming murderer of The Talented Mr. Ripley and four more novels.

Her second novel, The Price of Salt (1952), is a love story between two women, published under a pseudonym because of its subject; it was ground-breaking for its positive depiction of a lesbian relationship and its hopeful ending. She moved to England in 1963, France in 1967 and Switzerland in 1982, and wrote 22 novels over nearly five decades.

Works

Major works

  1. 1950Strangers on a Trainher first novel; filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951
  2. 1952The Price of Saltpublished as by Claire Morgan; reissued under her own name as Carol in 1990
  3. 1955The Talented Mr. Ripleythe first of five Ripley novels; won the Edgar Allan Poe Scroll of the Mystery Writers of America
  4. 1957Deep Water
  5. 1977Edith's Diary
  6. 1995Small g: a Summer Idyllher last novel, published just after her death

Timeline

Turning points

  1. 1942

    Graduated from Barnard College.

  2. 1949

    Began writing The Price of Salt on returning to New York in October.

  3. 1950

    Strangers on a Train was published in March and received favourable reviews.

  4. 1952

    The Price of Salt appeared under the pseudonym Claire Morgan.

  5. 1955

    The Talented Mr. Ripley was published in December.

  6. 1963

    Moved to England.

  7. 1990

    Agreed to the republication of The Price of Salt under her own name, as Carol.

  8. 1995

    Died in Locarno of aplastic anemia and lung cancer, at 74.

Why they are here

Patricia Highsmith and the shelf

Relevance

The Price of Salt is one of the founding books of the lesbian romance, and was unusual for its time in letting its heroines choose each other and live. It is the reason Highsmith belongs on this shelf, although she is far better known for crime fiction, and she refused to speak publicly about her own sexuality.

Influence

Her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations, and The Price of Salt/Carol is read as an ancestor of the modern sapphic romance. Her reputation is complicated by antisemitic and racist views recorded in her later life, for which she remains controversial.

Nearby on the shelf

If you read this, you might look here

These are Valice Press titles from the same part of the library. They are not by Patricia Highsmith, and they are not a recommendation on Patricia Highsmith’s behalf — only the same shelf.

Related authors

Read alongside

Sources

Where this comes from

Everything on this page about Patricia Highsmith is written from these sources, not from memory. Their dates and key claims were checked against the sources on 8 October 2026.The life dates are compared across Wikidata and the Library of Congress’s authority records.