Marking the fiftieth anniversary of Eudora Welty's first important publication, this special collection of critical essays celebrates her achievement as an incomparable literary artist. Since 1936, when "Death of a Traveling Salesman" was published, the excellence of her stories, novels, essays and collections has been giving unceasing acclaim, and she has become one of the most honored and most esteemed of American writers. The essays in this collection convey the scholarly pleasure one finds in studying the works of Eudora Welty. Although they employ varying critical methodologies, pleasure is at the source of the examinations published in this book. In these essays, forma, mythic, and thematic criticism from a variety of scholars offers fresh access to A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and Delta Wedding. One bibliographical study included shows Welty to be keenly attuned to the nuances of meaning during the writing and revising of The Opti

In One Writer's Imagination, Suzanne Marrs draws upon nearly twenty years of conversations, interviews, and friendship with Eudora Welty to discuss the intersections between biography and art in the Pulitzer Prize winner's work. Through an engaging chronological and comprehensive reading of the Welty canon, Marrs describes the ways Welty's creative process transformed and transfigured fact to serve the purposes of fiction. She points to the sparks that lit Welty's imagination -- an imagination that thrived on polarities in her personal life and in society at large. Marrs offers new evidence of the role Welty's mother, circle of friends, and community played in her development as a writer and analyzes the manner in which her most heartfelt relationships -- including her romance with John Robinson -- inform her work. She charts the profound and often subtle ways Welty's fiction responded to the crucial historical episodes of her time -- notably the Great Depression, World War II, and the civil rights movement -- and the writer's personal reactions to war, racism, poverty, and the political issues of her day. In doing so, Marrs proves Welty to be a much more political artist than has been conventionally thought. Scrutinizing drafts of Welty's work, Marrs reveals an evolving pattern of revision increasingly significant to the author's thematic concerns and precision of style. Welty's achievement, Marrs explains, confirms theories of creativity even as it transcends them, remaining in its origins somewhat mysterious. Marrs's relationship to Eudora Welty as a friend, scholar, and archivist -- with access to private papers and restricted correspondence -- makes her a unique authority on Welty's forty-year career. The eclectic approach of her study speaks to the exhilarating power of imagination Welty so thoroughly enjoyed in the act of writing.

Eudora Welty: Thirteen Essays edited by Peggy W. Prenshaw This collection of essays about the writings of Eudora Welty, a southern writer in the grand tradition of American literature, reflects the range of Welty criticism. Themes, forms, and stylistic features in her work are given careful consideration by some of the most notable of Welty scholars: Chester E. Eisinger, John A. Allen, J. A. Bryant, Jr., John Edward Hardy, Albert J. Devlin, Warren French, Julia L. Demmin and Daniel Curley, Daniele Pitavy-Souques, Robert B. Heilman, Seymour L. Gross, Barbara McKenzie, Michael Kreyling, and Ruth M. Vande Kieft. The essays included in this volume were selected from the 1979 publication Eudora Welty: Critical Essays also edited by Peggy W. Prenshaw. Eudora Welty: Thirteen Essays retains the breadth of subject and approach that marked the earlier volume. Dr. Peggy W. Prenshaw is currently the Millsaps College Humanities Scholar in Residence. She recently retired from the Fred C. Frey Chair in Southern Studies at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on southern women writers, including Eudora Welty and Elizabeth Spencer.

A Study Guide for Eudora Welty's "The Ponder Heart," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.