Welty had produced seven distinctive books in fourteen years, but that rate of production came to a startling halt. Even before she pulled The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories (1955) together, she published The Ponder Heart (1954), an extended dramatic monologue delivered by Edna Earle, a character who truly is a character. Most of these stories investigate the ways individuals can live and create meaning for themselves without being rooted in time and place. Though the interlocking nature of The Golden Apples is gone, a new theme emerges. It is perhaps the greatest triumph of her distinguished career, an unmatched example of the story cycle.ДЄfter the publication of this book, Welty traveled to Europe and drew upon her European experiences in two stories she would eventually group with вЂњCirce,вЂќ a story narrated by the witch-goddess, and with four stories set in the American South. Midway through the composition process, she finally realized that she was writing about a common cast of characters, that the characters of one story seemed to be younger or older versions of the characters in other stories, and she decided to create a book that was neither novel nor story collection. When Welty began writing the stories, however, she had no idea that they would be connected. The Golden Apples (1949) includes seven interlocking stories that trace life in the fictional Morgana, Mississippi, from the turn of the century until the late 1940s. In WeltyвЂ™s next book, the unity of the novel is missing but not wholly. Set in the Mississippi Delta of 1923, though published in 1946, the book was originally criticized as a nostalgic portrait of the plantation South, but critical opinion has since counteracted such views, seeing in the novel, to use Albert DevlinвЂ™s words, the вЂњprobing for a humane order.вЂќ Then came Delta Wedding, her first novel. A year after this novella appeared, Welty published a third book of fiction, stories that were collected as The Wide Net (1943) and that were fewer in number and more darkly lyrical than those in her first volume. In 1942, Welty followed with a very different book, a novella partaking of folklore, fairy tale, and MississippiвЂ™s legendary history. ItвЂ™s not patronizing, not romanticizing - itвЂ™s the way they should be written about.вЂќ Toni Morrison has observed that Eudora Welty wrote вЂњabout black people in a way that few white men have ever been able to write. Here she at times translated into fiction memories of people and places she had earlier photographed, and the volumeвЂ™s three stories focusing upon African American characters exemplify the empathy that was present in her photos. In A Curtain of Green, Welty included seventeen stories that move from the comic to the tragic, from realistic portraits to surrealistic ones, and that display a wry wit, the keen observation of detail, and a sure rendering of dialect. Her first book was published five years later. Her first publication was instead a short story, вЂњDeath of a Traveling Salesman.вЂќ In 1936, the editor of Manuscript literary magazine called it вЂњone of the best stories we have ever read.вЂќ

During these years, she took many photographs, and in 19 they were exhibited in New York but they were not published as she had wished. From Wisconsin, Welty went on to graduate study at the Columbia University School of Business.ДЄfter her college years, Welty worked at WJDX radio station, wrote society columns for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and served as a Junior Publicity Agent for the Works Progress Administration.

Her collegiate years were spent first at the Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus and then at the University of Wisconsin, where she received her bachelorвЂ™s degree. She attended Davis Elementary School when Miss Lorena Duling was principal and graduated from JacksonвЂ™s Central High School in 1925. Nourished by such a background, Welty became perhaps the most distinguished graduate of the Jackson Public School system. With her brothers, Edward Jefferson Welty and Walter Andrews Welty, she shared bonds of devotion, camaraderie, and humor. From her father she inherited a вЂњlove for all instruments that instruct and fascinate,вЂќ from her mother a passion for reading and for language. Eudora Welty Foundation Scholar-in-ResidenceД«orn in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi, the daughter of Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty, Eudora Welty grew up in a close-knit and loving family.

Eudora welty the wide net