Eudora Welty, one of America's most celebrated writers, was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1909. Although she traveled widely and often, she lived most of her life on Pinehurst Street in Jackson's Belhaven subdivision, writing—with quiet power and eloquence—stories, novels, essays, and book reviews. Her literary career spanned seven decades and brought her international fame and many honors. She received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist's Daughter. After her death in 2001, her house became the property of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to be operated as a literary house museum. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

The selections in Eudora Welty's World, taken from her novels and short stories, are offered not only for their descriptive quality, but for her imaginative and provocative use of words. Welty was deeply attuned to the natural world. As a young woman she enjoyed long walks and country hikes. For thirty years she was an active gardener as her mother's “yard boy.” In later years she relished drives in the countryside. And at the end of her life, she was still watching squirrels “spiral down” the oak tree outside her window. Her powers of observation were keen and constantly at work. As a passenger in a car, she could spot a rabbit in a field passing it at sixty-five miles an hour. Welty's knowledge of and pleasure in nature is abundantly apparent in her fiction. This small book is for Welty's many fans, for lovers of nature, and above all, lovers of language.