Synopses & Reviews
Set in 1923, Delta Wedding is an exquisitively woven story of southern family life, centered around the Fairchild family's preparations for a wedding at their Mississippi plantation. In The Ponder Heart, a comic masterpiece, Miss Edna Earle Ponder, one of the few living members of a once prominent family, tells a traveling salesman the history of her family and fellow townsfolk. This edition brings together two fine works from one of the most beloved American writers of the twentiety century.
Synopsis
In this volume along with its companion, The Library of America presents all of the most significant and best-loved works of Eudora Welty. Of her own work, she wrote: "What I do in writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart, and skin of a human being who is not myself. Whether this happens to be a man or a woman, old or young, with skin black or white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer's imagination that I set most high."
Stories, Essays and Memoir presents Welty's collected short stories, an astonishing body of work that has made her one of the most respected writers of short fiction. A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (1941), her first book, includes many of her most popular stories, such as "A Worn Path." "Powerhouse," and the farcical "Why I Live at the P.O."
The Wide Net and Other Stories (1943), in which historical figures such as Aaron Burr ("First Love") and John James Audubon ("A Still Moment") appear as characters, shows her evolving mastery as a regional chronicler.
The Golden Apples (1946) is a series of interrelated stories about the inhabitants of the fictional town of Morgana, Mississippi. It was Welty's favorite among her books, and she described it as "an experience in a writer's own discovery of affinities. In writing, as in life, the connections of all sorts of relationships and kinds lie in wait of discovery, and give out their signals to the Geiger counter of the charged imagination, once it is drawn into the right field."
The stories of The Bride of Innisfallen and Other Stories (1955) are set both in the American South and in Europe. Also included are two stories from the 1960s, "Where Is the Voice Coming From?," based on the shooting of Medgar Evers, and "The Demonstrators."
A selection of nine literary and personal essays includes evocations of the Jackson, Mississippi, of her youth that is essential to her work ("The Little Store," "A Sweet Devouring") and cogent discussions of literary form ("Writing and Analyzing a Story," "Place in Fiction"). The volume concludes with One Writer's Beginnings (1984), the sensitive memoir of her childhood, which has become one of the most widely read of her books.
About the Author
Eudora Welty (1909-2001) was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and attended the Mississippi State College for Women, the University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University (where she studied advertising). She worked as a photographer during the Depression and published her first book, a collection of short stories, in 1941. In addition to short fiction, Welty wrote novels, novellas, essays, and reviews, and was the winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. By the time of her death in 2001, Welty had established herself as one of the most important and beloved American writers of the twentieth century.
Table of Contents
A curtain of green and other stories -- The wide net and other stories -- The golden apples -- The bride of Innisfallen and other stories -- Other stories --Selected essays -- One writer's beginnings.