Where to Start Reading Eudora Welty

Fellow Mississippian Eudora Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) is one of my favorite authors.

In fact, I wrote about her in my 2014 book, Flourish: Balance for Homeschool Moms, in the section on bidding farewell to fear:

Twice in my life I have let irrational fears hold me back. These are two of the choices I’ve regretted most. When I was just out of college and working a secretarial job while my [then-] husband was in seminary, my father had the opportunity to spend time with Eudora Welty, one of my favorite writers. She was an alumna of the university where he worked, and he was going to a video interview with her. Only a few people would be there, and he said I could go with him, but I was afraid the crew wouldn’t want me tagging along. I settled for sending a couple of my books with Dad for Miss Welty to sign. He got to chat with her for half an hour—and I could have been there. A few years later I did get to meet her very briefly and have her sign one of my books in person, but I still regret letting fear hold me back from that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a real conversation with her (107).

This quote from Welty supplemented my confession: “Naturally, it is the very breath of life . . . to go out and see what is to be seen of the world. For the artist to be unwilling to move, mentally or spiritually or physically, out of the familiar is a sign that spiritual timidity or poverty or decay has come upon him; for what is familiar will then have turned into all that is tyrannical” (“Place in Fiction”). An important reminder for everyone—not just artists.

I did have the privilege of attending Eudora Welty’s funeral in 2001 and writing about it for Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook, as well as writing several other articles about her, which are listed at the end of this post. My fourth son, a nursing infant at the time, traveled with me (and a babysitter) to Jackson. As we left the cemetery, a woman noticed the baby and struck up a conversation. She turned out to be Welty’s long-time next-door neighbor, who then became my dear friend.

In my American literature classes for 2022-23, I’m teaching One Writer’s Beginnings for both high schoolers and adults, as well as The Optimist’s Daughter for adults. This year’s class is winding up, but we have a great line-up of British literature for 2023-24. Find out more at www.MaryJoTate.com.

Readers often ask me where to start reading Welty, and that’s a question I love to answer.

I always recommend starting with Welty’s memoir, One Writer’s Beginnings (1984), which provides a delightful look at the influences that taught her to listen, to see, and to find a voice.  It’s one of my top ten favorite books! This memoir is based on a series of three lectures she gave at Harvard. She revised them somewhat for publication (partly by deleting long quotes from her fiction), but they’re very similar. There is no audio version of the book, but the audio of her lectures is delightful.

After that, I suggest her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, The Optimist’s Daughter (1974), where you’ll notice autobiographical influences. Welty herself reads the audiobook.

Then move on to her stories. My favorite way to get started with her stories is the audio version, Essential Welty, of Welty reading “Why I Live at the P.O.” (hilarious!), “Powerhouse” (based on her experience at a Fats Waller concert), and “The Petrified Man” in her charming Mississippi drawl.

If you want a book with a sample of her stories over her career (including the three in the audio above), check out Thirteen Stories.

Or go straight to the complete collection, The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. The latest edition includes a fabulous introduction by Ann Patchett. The audiobook, read by 10 different narrators, is excellent.

Welty wrote insightful nonfiction as well as fiction. The Eye of the Story (1978) is a collection of her essays on writers (including Jane Austen, Willa Cather, and Anton Chekhov), essays on writing (including “Place in Fiction” and “Some Notes on Time in Fiction”), book reviews (including Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White and Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner—what a range!), and personal and occasional pieces (My favorite is “A Sweet Devouring,” about her love for reading).

She was also a skillful photographer. The most complete collection is Photographs (1989).

Here’s an interesting interview with the Paris Review:  https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4013/the-art-of-fiction-no-47-eudora-welty

If you’d like a quick introduction to the life of this brilliant author, check out the short bio by Welty scholar Amelia McHaney at https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/eudora-welty/.

Eudora Welty: A Biography is the definitive, authoritative biography by Welty scholar Suzanne Marrs, who spent time with Miss Welty daily for many years and had unprecedented access to her letters and papers. In 2020 I took an amazing online class with Suzanne, as well as Michael Pickard, covering her biography, Welty’s memoir, and Welty’s home, which is now a museum. (Note: Don’t waste your time on Eudora: A Writer’s Life by Ann Waldron. Welty and most of her friends refused to cooperate with Waldron, whose biography, based on limited resources, is sometimes misleading or condescending.)

The Eudora Welty Foundation provides a variety of resources for readers and teachers. It also assists in preserving Welty’s home, which is one of the most intact literary houses in America in terms of its authenticity. I highly recommend a visit!

When I visited the Welty house and gardens, I got teary-eyed looking at her mother’s set of Dickens, which she rescued from fire in West Virginia. In One Writer’s Beginnings, Welty writes, “My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him” (8). She later writes, “. . . she the one—before I was born—when there was a fire, had broken loose from all hands and run back—on crutches, too—into the burning house to rescue her set of Dickens which she flung, all twenty-four volumes, from the window before she jumped out after them, all for Daddy to catch” (61).

These are my articles about Eudora Welty:

• “Eudora Welty’s Ninetieth Birthday.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1999, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman / Gale, 2000), 295–298.
• “Eudora Welty’s Funeral.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 2001, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman / Gale, 2002), 333–335.
• “Eudora Welty Remembered in Two Exhibits.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 2002, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and George Garrett (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman / Gale, 2003), 477–480.
• “Eudora Welty: A Curtain of Green.” Research Guide to American Literature: American Modernism, 1914–1945, ed. George Parker Anderson (New York: Bruccoli Clark Layman / Facts on File, 2010), 232–238

Wherever you start with Welty, I hope you enjoy the journey!

Please leave a comment about your own favorite Welty books or stories. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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