Eudora Welty - A Biography

Zusatztext PRAISE FOR ONE WRITER'S IMAGINATION "Suzanne Marrs knows more about Eudora Welty than anyone else, and here she serves up a generous portion of her knowledge. In Marrs's clear-eyed gaze,Welty only goes on growing as a woman, a writer, a human being; and what Marrs sees is convincing." -REYNOLDS PRICE Informationen zum Autor SUZANNE MARRS is the author of Eudora Welty: A Biography and  One Writer's Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty ; the editor of What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell ; and a recipient of the Phoenix Award for Distinguished Welty Scholarship. She is a professor of English at Millsaps College. Klappentext In this definitive account of the life of one of the finest writers of the 20th century! Marrs restores Eudora Welty's story to human proportions! tracing Welty's history from her roots in Jackson! Mississippi! to her rise to international stature. Shelter and Beyond 1909-1931 On April 13, 1909, Eudora Alice Welty was born to Christian Webb and Chestina Andrews Welty. The young couple had been living in Jackson, Mississippi, since their marriage five years earlier. He had come from Ohio, she from West Virginia; they had met when Chris, as he was known, worked one summer at a logging camp near her home. Courtship had led to love, and they had chosen to begin their married life in Mississippi's rapidly growing capital city; Jackson's population had been slightly less than eight thousand in 1900, but by 1910 it would have more than tripled. In this booming town, the Weltys prospered: In 1906 Chris joined the newly established Lamar Life Insurance Company as its cashier, becoming the assistant secretary by year's end, and in 1908 the couple built their first house, on North Congress Street. Though Chestina, or Chessie as her husband called her, kept a cow and chickens in the backyard, the Weltys lived within six blocks of Chris's office and of the downtown theaters, department stores, and grocers; within two blocks of the state capitol; and within three blocks of Galloway Methodist Church, to which they belonged. They also lived across the street from a grammar school and within sight of a cemetery. Their first child, a son born in 1906, lay in that cemetery, having died at the age of fifteen months. This loss had been devastating, but now the birth of a daughter was cause for both great rejoicing and great resolve. Chris and Chessie would be protective parents indeed. An ardent amateur photographer as well as an excited new father, Chris constantly snapped pictures of his daughter-as a babe in her mother's arms; in a specially ordered bonnet; on her first Christmas; on a trip to West Virginia and Ohio the summer after her birth; at home, attempting her first steps; with a miniature baby carriage and doll; in the yard with her mother's chickens; in a fine dress for her three-year-old birthday party. Chestina gathered these pictures and many others into an album and wrote captions for the photos; below a picture of Chris and Eudora she wrote "a proud Daddy," and below one of herself with the baby, she added "and mother too." From the first, Eudora Welty was reared in an atmosphere of abundant parental love.1 She was also reared in a book-filled environment. By the time she was two or three years old, Eudora knew, as she wrote in her autobiography, that "any room in our house, at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to. My mother read to me. She'd read to me in the big bedroom in the mornings, when we were in her rocker together, which ticked in rhythm as we rocked, as though we had a cricket accompanying the story. She'd read to me in the diningroom on winter afternoons in front of the coal fire, with our cuckoo clock ending the story with 'Cuckoo,' and at night when I'd got in my own bed. I must have gi...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Suzanne Marrs
• Editore: Harvest Books
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 01.10.2006
• EAN: 9780156030632
• ISBN: 978-0-15-603063-2
• Dimensioni: 135 mm x 202 mm x 30 mm
• Categorie: Saggistica > Filosofia, religione > Biografie, autobiografie; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Literary Figures, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Women, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Historical