Publication Order of Mitford Books
| At Home in Mitford | 1994 |
| A Light in the Window | 1995 |
| These High, Green Hills | 1996 |
| Out to Canaan | 1997 |
| A New Song | 1999 |
| A Common Life: The Wedding Story | 2001 |
| In This Mountain | 2002 |
| Shepherds Abiding | 2003 |
| Light from Heaven | 2005 |
| Home to Holly Springs | 2007 |
| In the Company of Others | 2010 |
| Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good | 2014 |
| Come Rain or Come Shine | 2015 |
| To Be Where You Are | 2017 |
| My Beloved | 2025 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| The Mitford Snowmen | 2001 |
| Esther’s Gift: A Mitford Christmas Story | 2002 |
Publication Order of Children’s Books
| Miss Fannie’s Hat | 1998 |
| Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny | 2000 |
| The Trellis and the Seed: A Book of Encouragement for All Ages | 2003 |
| Jan Karon Presents: Violet Comes to Stay | 2006 |
| Jan Karon Presents: Violet Goes to the Country | 2007 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Patches of Godlight: Father Tim’s Favorite Quotes | 2001 |
| Jan Karon’s Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader | 2004 |
| A Continual Feast: Words of Comfort and Celebration, Collected by Father Tim | 2005 |
| The Mitford Bedside Companion | 2006 |
| Bathed in Prayer: Father Tim’s Prayers, Sermons, and Reflections from the Mitford Series | 2018 |
About Jan Karon
Jan Karon (born 14 March 1937) is an American novelist, the author of the Mitford series: fifteen novels set in a fictional North Carolina mountain village and centred on its Episcopal priest, Father Tim Kavanagh. The books have sold more than 25 million copies, and the latest, “My Beloved”, was published in October 2025.
She was born Janice Meredith Wilson in Lenoir, in the Blue Ridge foothills of North Carolina, and was raised by her maternal grandparents on a farm near Hudson after her parents separated. She left school at 14, married, and had her only child, Candace, at 15. On her own at 18, she took a job as a receptionist at an advertising agency and began writing copy. She went on working in advertising in Charlotte and later Raleigh, and a campaign she worked on at the McKinney & Silver agency won the 1987 Kelly Award for print advertising.
In 1988 Karon quit her job and moved to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where she began writing stories about Father Tim for the local newspaper, the Blowing Rocket. A small religious publisher brought them out in 1994 as “At Home in Mitford”. Sales stayed modest until Viking Penguin reissued the first three titles in paperback in 1996, and by the late 1990s the novels were New York Times bestsellers.
The series follows Father Tim, the village rector, through his marriage to Cynthia and the life of his parish. “A Common Life” (2001) goes back to tell the story of their wedding. “Home to Holly Springs” (2007) and “In the Company of Others” (2010) are sometimes listed separately as the Father Tim novels, and after a four-year gap the series resumed with “Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good” (2014). In “My Beloved”, a love letter Father Tim writes to Cynthia goes missing and passes among the neighbours.
Karon has also written children’s books, among them “Miss Fannie’s Hat” and “Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny”, and Mitford companion volumes including a cookbook. In 2000 she moved to Albemarle County, Virginia, where she restored a historic farm. She received the Library of Virginia’s Literary Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, and in 2021 founded the Mitford Museum in her former elementary school in Hudson.