Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. Her novel ''
The Optimist's Daughter
''The Optimist's Daughter'' is a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning short novel by Eudora Welty. It was first published as a long story in ''The New Yorker'' in March 1969 and was subsequently revised and published in book form in 1972. It conce ...
'' won the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the
Presidential Medal of Freedom and the
Order of the South The Southern Academy of Letters, Arts and Sciences awarded the Order of the South. Recipients include Eudora Welty, James Dickey, David Nolan and Patrick D. Smith. The award was established in 1971. The Academy included an Institute of Southern Aff ...
. She was the first living author to have her works published by the
Library of America.
Her house in
Jackson, Mississippi has been designated as a
National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.
Biography
Eudora Welty was born in
Jackson, Mississippi, on April 13, 1909, the daughter of Christian Webb Welty (1879–1931) and Mary Chestina (Andrews) Welty (1883–1966). She grew up with younger brothers Edward Jefferson and Walter Andrews. Her mother was a schoolteacher. Welty soon developed a love of reading reinforced by her mother, who believed that "any room in our house, at any time in the day, was there to read in, or to be read to." Her father, who worked as an insurance executive, was intrigued by gadgets and machines and inspired in Welty a love of mechanical things. She later used technology for symbolism in her stories and also became an avid photographer, like her father.
[Johnston, Carol Ann.]
Mississippi Writer's Page: Eudora Welty
. MWP: University of Mississippi. Retrieved November 28, 2011.
She attended
Central High School in Jackson.
Near the time of her high school graduation, Welty moved with her family to a house built for them at 1119 Pinehurst Street, which remained her permanent address until her death.
Wyatt C. Hedrick
Wyatt Cephus Hedrick (December 17, 1888 in Chatham, Virginia, Chatham, Virginia – May 5, 1964 in Houston, Texas) was an American architect, engineer, and Real estate development, developer most active in Texas and the American South. He began ...
designed the Weltys' Tudor Revival-style home, which is now known as the
Eudora Welty House and Garden.

Welty studied at the
Mississippi State College for Women
Mississippi University for Women (MUW or "The W") is a coeducational public university in Columbus, Mississippi. It was formerly named the Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls and later the Mississippi State College f ...
from 1925 to 1927, then transferred to the
University of Wisconsin to complete her studies in English literature. At the suggestion of her father, she studied advertising at
Columbia University. Because she graduated in the depths of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, she struggled to find work in New York.
Soon after Welty returned to Jackson in 1931, her father died of
leukemia. She took a job at a local radio station and wrote about Jackson society for the
Memphis newspaper ''
Commercial Appeal
''The Commercial Appeal'' (also known as the ''Memphis Commercial Appeal'') is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also ...
''. In 1933, she began work for the
Works Progress Administration. As a publicity agent, she collected stories, conducted interviews, and took photographs of daily life in Mississippi. She gained a wider view of Southern life and the human relationships that she drew from for her short stories. During this time she also held meetings in her house with fellow writers and friends, a group she called the Night-Blooming Cereus Club. Three years later, she left her job to become a full-time writer.
In 1936, she published "The Death of a Traveling Salesman" in the literary magazine ''Manuscript'', and soon published stories in several other notable publications including ''
The Sewanee Review
''The Sewanee Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1892. It is the oldest continuously published quarterly in the United States. It publishes original fiction and poetry, essays, reviews, and literary criticism.
History
''Th ...
'' and ''
The New Yorker''. She strengthened her place as an influential Southern writer when she published her first book of short stories, ''
A Curtain of Green''. Her new-found success won her a seat on the staff of ''
The New York Times Book Review'', as well as a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
which enabled her to travel to France, England, Ireland, and Germany.
[House]
". Eudora Welty Foundation. Retrieved November 28, 2011. While abroad, she spent some time as a resident lecturer at the universities of
Oxford and
Cambridge, becoming the first woman to be permitted into the hall of
Peterhouse College
Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time gradua ...
. In 1960, she returned home to Jackson to care for her elderly mother and two brothers.
After
Medgar Evers, field secretary of the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
in Mississippi, was assassinated, she published a story in ''The New Yorker'', "Where Is the Voice Coming From?". She wrote it in the first person as the assassin.
In 1971, she published a collection of her photographs depicting the Great Depression, titled ''One Time, One Place''. Two years later, she received the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
for her novel ''
The Optimist's Daughter
''The Optimist's Daughter'' is a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning short novel by Eudora Welty. It was first published as a long story in ''The New Yorker'' in March 1969 and was subsequently revised and published in book form in 1972. It conce ...
''.
[ She lectured at Harvard University, and eventually adapted her talks as a three-part memoir titled ''One Writer's Beginnings''.][ She continued to live in her family house in Jackson until her death from natural causes on July 23, 2001. She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson. Her headstone has a quote from ''The Optimist's Daughter'': "For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love."
Throughout the 1970s, Welty carried on a lengthy correspondence with novelist ]Ross Macdonald
Ross Macdonald was the main pseudonym used by the American-Canadian writer of crime fiction Kenneth Millar (; December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983). He is best known for his series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featur ...
, creator of the Lew Archer series of detective novels.
Photography
While Welty worked as a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration, she took photographs of people from all economic and social classes in her spare time. From the early 1930s, her photographs show Mississippi's rural poor and the effects of the Great Depression. Collections of her photographs were published as ''One Time, One Place'' (1971) and ''Photographs'' (1989). Her photography was the basis for several of her short stories, including "Why I Live at the P.O.
"Why I Live at the P.O." is a short story written by Eudora Welty, American writer and photographer. It was published in her collection of stories named ''A Curtain of Green'' (1941). The work was inspired by a photograph taken by Welty that dep ...
", which was inspired by a woman she photographed ironing in the back of a small post office. Although focused on her writing, Welty continued to take photographs until the 1950s.
Writing career and major works
Welty's first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman", was published in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of author Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, ''A Curtain of Green'', in 1941. The book established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights, and featured the stories "Why I Live at the P.O.", "Petrified Man", and the frequently anthologized "A Worn Path
"A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty is a short story about an elderly African American woman who undertakes a familiar journey on a road in a rural area to acquire medicine for her grandson. She expresses herself, both to her surroundings and in short ...
". Excited by the printing of Welty's works in publications such as '' The Atlantic Monthly'', the Junior League of Jackson, of which Welty was a member, requested permission from the publishers to reprint some of her works. She eventually published over forty short stories, five novels, three works of non-fiction, and one children's book.
The short story "Why I Live at the P.O." was published in 1941, with two others, by ''The Atlantic Monthly''. It was republished later that year in Welty's first collection of short stories, ''A Curtain of Green''. The story is about Sister and how she becomes estranged from her family and ends up living at the post office where she works. Seen by critics as quality Southern literature
Southern United States literature consists of American literature written about the Southern United States or by writers from the region. Literature written about the American South first began during the colonial era, and developed significan ...
, the story comically captures family relationships. Like most of her short stories, Welty masterfully captures Southern idiom and places importance on location and customs. "A Worn Path" was also published in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' and ''A Curtain of Green''. It is seen as one of Welty's finest short stories, winning the second-place O. Henry Award in 1941.
Welty's debut novel, ''The Robber Bridegroom'' (1942), deviated from her previous psychologically inclined works, presenting static, fairy-tale characters. Some critics suggest that she worried about "encroaching on the turf of the male literary giant to the north of her in Oxford, Mississippi—William Faulkner", and therefore wrote in a fairy-tale style instead of a historical one. Most critics and readers saw it as a modern Southern fairy-tale and noted that it employs themes and characters reminiscent of the Grimm Brothers' works.
Immediately after the murder of Medgar Evers in 1963, Welty wrote ''Where Is the Voice Coming From?''. As she later said, she wondered: "Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place. That is, I ought to have learned by now, from here, what such a man, intent on such a deed, had going on in his mind. I wrote his story—my fiction—in the first person: about that character's point of view". Welty's story was published in ''The New Yorker'' soon after Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith Jr. (November 9, 1920 – January 21, 2001) was an American murderer, white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan from Greenwood, Mississippi. He murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Two trial ...
's arrest.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, ''The Optimist's Daughter'' (1972) is believed by some to be Welty's best novel. It was written at a much later date than the bulk of her work. As poet Howard Moss wrote in ''The New York Times'', the book is "a miracle of compression, the kind of book, small in scope but profound in its implications, that rewards a lifetime of work". The plot focuses on family struggles when the daughter and the second wife of a judge confront each other in the limited confines of a hospital room while the judge undergoes eye surgery.
Welty gave a series of addresses at Harvard University, revised and published as ''One Writer's Beginnings'' (Harvard, 1983). It was the first book published by Harvard University Press to be a '' New York Times'' Best Seller (at least 32 weeks on the list), and runner-up for the 1984 National Book Award for Nonfiction.["Welty Book is First Harvard U. Best Seller", Edwin McDowell, ''The New York Times'', March 13, 1984, page C16.]["Three Writers Win Book Awards", ''The New York Times'', November 16, 1984, page C32.]
In 1992, she was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story
The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living American or Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction.
The Award
The Rea Award is named after Michael M. Rea, who was engaged in ...
for her lifetime contributions to the American short story. Welty was a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. She also taught creative writing at colleges and in workshops. She lived near Jackson's Belhaven College
Belhaven University (Belhaven or BU) is a private evangelical Christian university in Jackson, Mississippi. Founded in 1883, the university offers traditional majors, programs of general studies, and pre-professional programs in Christian Ministr ...
and was a common sight among the people of her home town.
Welty personally influenced several young Mississippi writers in their careers including Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist
Ellen Gilchrist (born February 20, 1935) is an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. She won a National Book Award for her 1984 collection of short stories, ''Victory Over Japan''.
Life
Gilchrist was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a ...
, and Elizabeth Spencer. She was a Charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Literary criticism related to Welty's fiction
Welty was a prolific writer who created stories in multiple genres. Throughout her writing are the recurring themes of the paradox of human relationships, the importance of place (a recurring theme in most Southern writing), and the importance of mythological influences that help shape the theme.
Welty said that her interest in the relationships between individuals and their communities stemmed from her natural abilities as an observer. Perhaps the best examples can be found within the short stories in ''A Curtain of Green''. "Why I Live at the P.O." comically illustrates the conflict between Sister and her immediate community, her family. This particular story uses lack of proper communication to highlight the underlying theme of the paradox of human connection. Another example is Miss Eckhart of ''The Golden Apples'', who is considered an outsider in her town. Welty shows that this piano teacher's independent lifestyle allows her to follow her passions, but also highlights Miss Eckhart's longing to start a family and to be seen by the community as someone who belongs in Morgana. Her stories are often characterized by the struggle to retain identity while keeping community relationships.
Place is vitally important to Welty. She believed that place is what makes fiction seem real, because with place come customs, feelings, and associations. Place answers the questions, "What happened? Who's here? Who's coming?" Place is a prompt to memory; thus the human mind is what makes place significant. This is the job of the storyteller. “A Worn Path” is one short story that proves how place shapes how a story is perceived. Within the tale, the main character, Phoenix, must fight to overcome the barriers within the vividly described Southern landscape as she makes her trek to the nearest town. "The Wide Net" is another of Welty's short stories that uses place to define mood and plot. The river in the story is viewed differently by each character. Some see it as a food source, others see it as deadly, and some see it as a sign that "the outside world is full of endurance".
Welty is noted for using mythology to connect her specific characters and locations to universal truths and themes. Examples can be found within the short story "A Worn Path", the novel ''Delta Wedding
''Delta Wedding'' is a 1946 Southern fiction novel by Eudora Welty. Set in 1923, the novel tells of the experiences of the Fairchild family in a domestic drama-filled week leading up to Dabney Fairchild's wedding to the family overseer, Troy Fla ...
'', and the collection of short stories ''The Golden Apples''. In "A Worn Path", the character Phoenix has much in common with the mythical bird. Phoenixes are said to be red and gold and are known for their endurance and dignity. Phoenix, the old Black woman, is described as being clad in a red handkerchief with undertones of gold and is noble and enduring in her difficult quest for the medicine to save her grandson. In "Death of a Traveling Salesman", the husband is given characteristics common to Prometheus. He comes home after bringing fire to his boss and is full of male libido and physical strength. Welty also refers to the figure of Medusa, who in "Petrified Man" and other stories is used to represent powerful or vulgar women.
Locations can also allude to mythology, as Welty proves in her novel ''Delta Wedding''. As Professor Veronica Makowsky from the University of Connecticut writes, the setting of the Mississippi Delta has "suggestions of the goddess of love, Aphrodite or Venus-shells like that upon which Venus rose from the sea and female genitalia, as in the mound of Venus
In human anatomy, and in mammals in general, the ''mons pubis'' or pubic mound (also known simply as the mons, and known specifically in females as the ''mons Venus'' or ''mons veneris'') is a rounded mass of fatty tissue found over the pubic symp ...
and Delta of Venus". The title ''The Golden Apples'' refers to the difference between people who seek silver apples and those who seek golden apples. It is drawn from W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
' poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus", which ends "''The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun''". It also refers to myths of a golden apple being awarded after a contest. Welty used the symbol to illuminate the two types of attitudes her characters could take about life.
Honors
* 1941: O. Henry Award, second place, "A Worn Path
"A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty is a short story about an elderly African American woman who undertakes a familiar journey on a road in a rural area to acquire medicine for her grandson. She expresses herself, both to her surroundings and in short ...
"
* 1942: O. Henry Award, first place, "The Wide Net"
* 1943: O. Henry Award, first place, "Livvie is Back"
* 1954: William Dean Howells medal for fiction, ''The Ponder Heart''[Dawidoff, Nicholas. (August 10, 1995.)]
At Home with Eudora Welty: Only the Typewriter Is Silent
. ''The New York Times''. Retrieved November 28, 2011.
* 1968: O. Henry Award, first place, "The Demonstrators”
* 1969: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
* 1970: The Edward MacDowell Medal
* 1973: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
, ''The Optimist's Daughter
''The Optimist's Daughter'' is a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning short novel by Eudora Welty. It was first published as a long story in ''The New Yorker'' in March 1969 and was subsequently revised and published in book form in 1972. It conce ...
''["Fiction"]
''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
* 1979: Honorary Doctorate of Letters from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Urbana, Illinois
* 1980: Presidential Medal of Freedom
* 1981: Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia
* 1983: National Book Award for the first paperback edition of ''The Collected Works of Eudora Welty''["National Book Awards – 1983"]
National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-01-26.
(With essay by Robin Black from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)[
Welty's ''Collected Works'' won the 1983 award for paperback Fiction. From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.]
* 1983: Invited by Harvard University to give the first annual Massey Lectures in the History of American Civilization, revised and published as ''One Writer's Beginnings''[
* 1983: ]St. Louis Literary Award The St. Louis Literary Award has been presented yearly since 1967 to a distinguished figure in literature. It is sponsored by the Saint Louis University Library Associates.
Winners
Past Recipients of the Award:
*2023 Neil Gaiman
*2022 Arundhati ...
from the Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...
Library Associates
* 1985: Achievement Award, American Association of University Women
The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 ...
* 1986: National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
.
* 1990: A recipient of the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, Lifetime Achievement, which was the state of Mississippi's recognition of her extraordinary contribution to American Letters.
* 1991: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
["Distinguished Contribution to American Letters"]
National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
(With acceptance speech by Welty.)[Marrs, p. 547]
* 1991: Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award is an American literary prize awarded by the Tulsa Library Trust in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is awarded annually to an "internationally acclaimed" author who has "written a distinguished body of work an ...
. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.
* 1992: Rea Award for the Short Story[Marrs, p. 549]
* 1992: PEN/Malamud Award for the Short Story
* 1993: Charles Frankel Prize, National Endowment for the Humanities
* 1993: Distinguished Alumni Award, American Association of State Colleges and Universities
* 1996: Made a ''Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
'' by the French government
* 1998: First living author to have her works published in the prestigious Library of America series
* 2000: America Award for a lifetime contribution to international writing
* 2000: Induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame
The National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF) is an American institution incorporated in 1969 by a group of men and women in Seneca Falls, New York, although it did not induct its first enshrinees until 1973. As of 2021, it had 303 inductees.
Induc ...
Commemoration
* In 1990, Steve Dorner
Steve Dorner is an American software engineer who developed the Eudora e-mail client in 1988 as a part of his work as a staff member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dorner was hired by Qualcomm in July 1992 and Eudora was subseq ...
named his e-mail program " Eudora", inspired by Welty's story "Why I Live at the P.O." Welty was reportedly "pleased and amused" by the tribute.
* In 1973, the state of Mississippi established May 2 as "Eudora Welty Day".
* Each October, Mississippi University for Women hosts the "Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium" to promote and celebrate the work of contemporary Southern writers.
* Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...
sculpture professor Critz Campbell has designed furniture inspired by Welty, that has been featured in '' Smithsonian'' magazine, ''The New York Times'', the '' Los Angeles Times'', '' The Washington Post'' and '' Elle'' magazine, and on the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
.
* A portrait of Eudora Welty hangs in the National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to:
*National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra
*National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred
*National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C.
*National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
of the Smithsonian; it was painted by her friend Mildred Nungester Wolfe.
*On September 10, 2018, Eudora Welty became the first author honored with a historical marker through the Mississippi Writers Trail The Mississippi Writers Trail is a series of historical markers which celebrate the literary, social, historical, and cultural contributions of Mississippi's most acclaimed and influential writers. An advisory committee of state cultural agencies ov ...
. The historical marker was installed at the Eudora Welty House and Garden in Jackson, Mississippi.
Works
Short story collections
* '' Death of a Traveling Salesman'',1936
* '' A Curtain of Green'', 1941
* ''A Worn Path'', 1941
* ''The Wide Net and Other Stories'', 1943
* ''Music from Spain : ''For Spanish music, see Music of Spain.''
"Music from Spain" is a short story by Eudora Welty, published in 1948 as a limited edition monograph by the Levee Press in Greenville, Mississippi
Greenville is a city in and the county seat of ...
'', 1948
* ''The Golden Apples
''The Golden Apples'' is a short story collection with seven stories written by Eudora Welty, first published in 1949. The stories form an interrelated cycle, which explores the economic and social plight of the fictional Morgana Mississippi: “ ...
'', 1949
* ''Selected Stories'', 1954
* ''The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories'', 1955
* ''Thirteen Stories'', 1965
* '' The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty'', 1980
* ''Moon Lake and Other Stories'', 1980
* ''Morgana: Two Stories from The Golden Apples'', 1988
Novels
* '' The Robber Bridegroom'' (novella), 1942
** Musical based on the novella
* ''Delta Wedding
''Delta Wedding'' is a 1946 Southern fiction novel by Eudora Welty. Set in 1923, the novel tells of the experiences of the Fairchild family in a domestic drama-filled week leading up to Dabney Fairchild's wedding to the family overseer, Troy Fla ...
'', 1946
* ''The Ponder Heart
''The Ponder Heart'' is a novella written by Eudora Welty and illustrated by Joe Krush, originally published in ''The New Yorker'' in 1953, and republished by Harcourt Brace in 1954. The plot of ''The Ponder Heart'' follows Daniel Ponder, a wealthy ...
'', 1954[Adapted by ]Alice Parker
Alice Parker (born December 16, 1925) is an American composer, arranger, conductor, and teacher. She has authored five operas, eleven song-cycles, thirty-three cantatas, eleven works for chorus and orchestra, forty-seven choral suites, and ...
into a two-act opera which premiered in Jackson, Mississippi in September 1982. The performance was reviewed by Edward Rothstein of The New York Times.
* '' The Shoe Bird'' (juvenile), 1964
* ''Losing Battles
''Losing Battles'' is the last novel written by Eudora Welty. It was released on April 13, 1970. Its setting is two days—a Sunday and Monday morning—in a 1930s farm in Mississippi. It was her first novel to make the best seller lists, to Wel ...
'', 1970
* ''The Optimist's Daughter
''The Optimist's Daughter'' is a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning short novel by Eudora Welty. It was first published as a long story in ''The New Yorker'' in March 1969 and was subsequently revised and published in book form in 1972. It conce ...
'', 1972
Essays
* ''The Eye of the Story'', 1979
* ''One Writer's Beginnings
''One Writer's Beginnings'' is a collection of autobiographical essays by Eudora Welty. The book is based on three lectures she delivered at Harvard University in April 1983, as part of the William E. Massey Sr. lecture series. The three essays a ...
'', 1984
* ''On Writing'', 2002
See also
* Mississippi literature
The literature of Mississippi, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Mississippi has a literary tradition that arose from a diverse mix of cultures and races. Read online herefrom the Cleveland School District - Access date: 201 ...
Notes
References
Notes
Citations
* Ford, Richard, and Michael Kreyling, eds. ''Welty: Stories, Collections, & Memoir''. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998. Print.
* Makowsky, Veronica. ''Eudora Welty''. American Writers. Ed. Stephen Wagley. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. 343–356. Print.
* Marrs, Suzanne. ''Eudora Welty: A Biography''. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2005. Print. 50–52.
* Welty, Eudora. ''The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty''. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1980. .
Further reading
* Gwin, Minrose
Mourning Medgar: Justice, Aesthetics, and the Local.
March 11, 2008. ''Southern Spaces''.
*
*
External links
*
*
Resources
Eudora Welty Foundation
Eudora Welty Society Homepage
Includes resources on Welty and Southern literature.
Eudora Welty webpage at The Mississippi Writers Page
Presented by the Department of English at the University of Mississippi.
Eudora Welty Small Manuscripts Collection (MUM00471)
Collection owned and maintained by the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections.
Writings on
Fiction Writers Review on Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O."
1987 Whiting Writers' Award Keynote Speech
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welty, Eudora
1909 births
2001 deaths
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American photographers
American women novelists
American women short story writers
Columbia Business School alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Deaths from pneumonia in Mississippi
Members of the Junior League
Mississippi University for Women alumni
National Book Award winners
National Humanities Medal recipients
O. Henry Award winners
PEN/Malamud Award winners
Writers from Jackson, Mississippi
People of the New Deal arts projects
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
Works Progress Administration workers
Writers of American Southern literature
20th-century American short story writers
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Novelists from Mississippi
20th-century American women photographers
Fulbright alumni
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters