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.” It was Welty’s favorite among her books, and she described it as “an experience in a writer’s own discovery of affinities.
The Golden Apples (1946) is a series of interrelated stories about the inhabitants of the fictional town of Morgana, Mississippi. 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. 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.” 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. It is the act of a writer’s imagination that I set most high.”
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. 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. “With a few lines she draws the gesture of a deaf-mute, the windblown skirts of a Negro woman in the fields, the bewilderment of a child in the sickroom of an old people's asylum-and she has told more than many an author might tell in a novel of six hundred pages,” wrote Marianne Hauser in 1941, in her review for The New York Times.In this volume along with its companion, The Library of America presents all of the most significant and best-loved works of Eudora Welty. The collection received praise for her “fanatic love of people,” according to The New York Times. "A Worn Path" won her the second-place O. “A Worn Path,” which originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly as well, tells the story of Phoenix Jackson, an African American woman who journeys along the Natchez Trace, located in Mississippi, overcoming many hurdles, a repeated journey in order to get medicine for her grandson, who swallowed a lye and damaged his throat. Other than “Death of a Traveling Salesman,” her collection contains other notable entries, such as “Why I Live at the P.O.” and "A Worn Path." Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, "Why I Live at the P.O." casts a comical look at family relationships through the eyes of the protagonist who, once she became estranged from her family, took up living at the Post Office. The collection painted a portrait of Mississippi by highlighting its inhabitants, both Black and white, and presenting racial relations in a realistic manner. “The Death of a Traveling Salesman” reappeared in her first book of short stories, A Curtain of Green, published in 1941. Welty graduated from Central High School in Jackson in 1925. The instruments that “instruct and fascinate,” including technology, were present in her fiction, and she also complemented her writerly work with photography.
Her father, who was an insurance executive, taught her the “love for all instruments that instruct and fascinate”, while she inherited her proclivity for reading and language from her mother, a schoolteacher. Her parents were Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty. Notable Quote: "The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy."Įudora Welty was born on Apin Jackson, Mississippi.Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship (1942), Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1973), American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction (1972), National Book Award (1983), Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (1991), PEN/Malamud Award (1992).Selected Works: A Curtain of Green (1941), The Golden Apples (1949), The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), One Writer’s Beginnings (1984).Education: Mississippi State College for Women, University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University.Parents: Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty.Known For: American writer known for her short stories and novels set in the South.