Lump It or Leave It

Florence Virginia King was born in Washington, D. C. on January 5, 1936. She received a bachelor's degree in history from American University. After college, she trained briefly for the Marines before entering graduate school at the University of Mississippi. She left graduate school after she discovered she could earn $250 an article writing first-person stories for pulp magazines like Uncensored Confessions.

She wrote more than 100 articles. When the pulps became less popular, she started writing erotic novels under a series of pseudonyms including The Barbarian Princess by Laura Buchanan. In the 1960s, she was a feature writer for The Raleigh News and Observer in North Carolina. Her first book under her own name was the nonfiction title Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, which was published in 1975. Her other nonfiction books include He: An Irreverent Look at the American Male, Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye, Lump It or Leave It, and With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy. She also wrote a memoir entitled Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and an anthology entitled The Florence King Reader.

She wrote two columns for the National Review entitled Misanthrope's Corner and The Bent Pin. She also wrote book criticism for Newsday and The New York Times. She died on January 6, 2015 at the age of 80.

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