A celebratory volume published to honor Welty in her ninetieth year
Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi,
on April 13, 1909.
Published in celebration of her ninetieth
year, this book marks the occasion by reprinting "Death of a Traveling
Salesman," her first published story. It set the tone and established the
high artistry of distinguished work that was to follow it over the course
of more than half a century. It appeared in a little magazine called Manuscript
in 1936 as the astonishingly mature work of a young writer. Welty
was 27.
Included here is an essay she wrote at
the request of The Georgia Review. It is her reflection over her
long career and a new look into her first piece of fiction to appear before
the public eye. Included also are two black-and-white photographs
taken by Welty in the 1930s and one photograph of Welty. These show the setting of the story,
rural Mississippi of the Depression years.
The version of "Death of a Traveling Salesman"
printed here is the one from Manuscript. In Welty's collection
A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (1941) it was reprinted with
some alterations.
Eudora Welty's many books include The Golden Apples and Other
Stories and The Optimist's Daughter, which was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize.
48 pp.