Author Guide · Southern Fiction
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In 1933 Eudora Welty took a job as a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration and spent the Depression years travelling around Mississippi, interviewing people and photographing them. One of her pictures, of a woman ironing in a small post office, became the starting point for “Why I Live at the P.O.”, one of the seventeen stories in her first book, A Curtain of Green (1941), introduced by Katherine Anne Porter. She lived almost her whole life in Jackson, where she was born in 1909 and died in 2001. The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, and in 1998 she became the first living author published by the Library of America. This guide covers her eleven key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1941–1984 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Eudora Welty is best known for her stories, collected in A Curtain of Green (1941), The Wide Net (1943), The Golden Apples (1949) and The Bride of the Innisfallen (1955), and for The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Start with The Optimist’s Daughter, a short novel; then read the stories, all of them in The Collected Stories (1980).
Where to Start with Eudora Welty
If you want a short, complete way in
→ The Optimist’s Daughter (1972) — the Pulitzer-winning novel about a daughter, a father and his young widow.
If you want her famous short stories
→ A Curtain of Green (1941) — “A Worn Path” and “Why I Live at the P.O.” are here.
If you want the book critics call her centre
→ The Golden Apples (1949) — seven linked stories set in one Mississippi town.
If you want the woman behind the books
→ One Writer’s Beginnings (1984) — her short memoir, a bestseller for almost a year.
11 Eudora Welty Books, in Order
A Curtain of Green
Her first book, published by Doubleday with an introduction by Katherine Anne Porter: seventeen stories of small-town and rural Mississippi. It includes “A Worn Path”, about an old Black woman, Phoenix Jackson, walking into town to fetch medicine for her grandson, which won second place in the O. Henry Awards and is her most anthologised story, and the comic monologue “Why I Live at the P.O.”.
The Robber Bridegroom
A short comic novel that mixes Grimm’s fairy tales with frontier legend, set along the Natchez Trace in the late eighteenth century: the planter Clement Musgrove, his daughter Rosamond, and Jamie Lockhart, gentleman by day and bandit by night. Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman turned it into a Broadway musical in 1975; Barry Bostwick won a Tony for the 1976 production.
The Wide Net
Eight stories, most first printed in magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and The Atlantic Monthly, several reaching back into Mississippi’s past: “First Love”, “A Still Moment” and the title story, which, like “Livvie”, won first place in the O. Henry Awards. Critics were divided at the time; Robert Penn Warren found the stories “more nearly cut to one pattern” than her first book.
Delta Wedding
Her first full-length novel, set in the Mississippi Delta in the early 1920s. Nine-year-old Laura McRaven, whose mother has just died, comes from Jackson to Shellmound, the Fairchild family plantation, for the wedding of her cousin Dabney to Troy Flavin, the plantation manager, a match the family thinks beneath her. Around the wedding run the family’s secrets, among them the marriage of the beloved uncle George, whose wife Robbie has left him.
The Golden Apples
Seven connected stories set over the years in the fictional town of Morgana, Mississippi, from “Shower of Gold” and “June Recital” to “Moon Lake” and “The Wanderers”, with the same families recurring. Its characters echo classical and Celtic myth, and the title draws on her love of W. B. Yeats. Critics have called it the central book in her fiction.
The Ponder Heart
Edna Earle Ponder, who runs the hotel in a small Mississippi town, tells the story of her uncle Daniel, a wealthy, generous man who keeps giving his possessions away, marries seventeen-year-old Bonnie Dee Peacock, and ends up on trial for murder after her death. First printed in The New Yorker in December 1953, it won the William Dean Howells Medal. A Broadway adaptation ran in 1956, and PBS filmed it in 2001.
The Bride of the Innisfallen
Seven stories, several of which leave Mississippi: the title story follows passengers travelling to Ireland, “Going to Naples” is set among passengers bound for Italy, and “Circe” retells a scene from the Odyssey. “No Place for You, My Love” and the Civil War story “The Burning” are also here. It was her last story collection.
Losing Battles
Her longest novel, set in the hill country around Banner, Mississippi, in the 1930s and told over two days, largely in dialogue. The Renfro and Beecham families gather for Granny Vaughn’s ninetieth birthday and await Jack Renfro, released from prison after a fight with the storekeeper Curly Stovall; the next day is the funeral of Miss Julia Mortimer, the schoolteacher who tried to educate them all. Many critics called it a masterpiece; others found its form hard to follow.
The Optimist’s Daughter
Laurel McKelva Hand, a widowed designer living in Chicago, comes to New Orleans when her father, Judge Clinton McKelva, has eye surgery. He dies in hospital, and she takes him home to Mount Salus, Mississippi, for the funeral with his young second wife Fay, whose family arrive from Texas. Alone afterwards in the family house, Laurel goes back over her parents’ marriage. It first appeared in The New Yorker in 1969 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973.
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
All four of her story collections in one volume, from A Curtain of Green to The Bride of the Innisfallen, plus two later stories, including “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, written in 1963 from the point of view of the murderer of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Its paperback edition won the National Book Award in 1983.
One Writer’s Beginnings
Based on three lectures she gave at Harvard in April 1983, published by Harvard University Press in three parts, “Listening”, “Learning to See” and “Finding a Voice”. She describes her childhood in Jackson, her parents and the reading that made her a writer. It was on The New York Times bestseller list for almost a year.
In What Order to Read Eudora Welty
None of Welty’s books continues another, so there is no required order. The short stories carry most of her reputation, and they are easiest to read in The Collected Stories, which keeps the four collections in their original order.
If you want a single complete novel first, The Optimist’s Daughter is the shortest and the most compressed. Save Losing Battles until you know her voice: it is long, almost entirely talk, and rewards patience more than any of her other books.
A reading path
1. The Optimist’s Daughter (1972)
2. A Curtain of Green (1941)
3. The Golden Apples (1949)
4. Delta Wedding (1946)
5. One Writer’s Beginnings (1984)
Everything Else Eudora Welty Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 8 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Children’s book
1
1 book · 1964
- 1964The Shoe Birda story for children
Essays and photographs
4
4 books · 1971–2002
- 1971One Time, One Placeher photographs of Mississippi in the Depression years
- 1978The Eye of the Storyselected essays and reviews
- 1989Photographsa larger collection of her photography
- 2002On Writingher essays on craft, published after her death
Selections
3
3 books · 1965–1988
- 1965Thirteen Storiesa selection from the collections
- 1980Moon Lake and Other Storiesa selection
- 1988Morganatwo stories from The Golden Apples
The years · 1909–2001
Quick facts about Eudora Welty
- Known for
- Eudora Welty is known for her short stories of small-town Mississippi, such as “A Worn Path” and “Why I Live at the P.O.”, and for the Pulitzer-winning novel The Optimist’s Daughter.
- 1909
- Born in Jackson, Mississippi
- 1933
- Starts work for the WPA, photographing Mississippi
- 2001
- Dies in Jackson, aged 92
- Born
- 13 April 1909, Jackson, Mississippi
- Died
- 23 July 2001, Jackson, Mississippi
- Education
- Mississippi State College for Women; University of Wisconsin (BA); advertising at Columbia University
- Worked
- Publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration from 1933, photographing daily life in Mississippi
- Honours
- Pulitzer Prize (1973), Presidential Medal of Freedom (1980), National Medal of Arts (1986), Légion d’honneur (1996)
- Library of America
- First living author published in the series, 1998
The red mark is 1972: The Optimist’s Daughter, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.
How Eudora Welty Writes: Listening and Looking
Welty learned to see as a photographer before she published fiction. Her WPA pictures of the 1930s show Mississippi’s rural poor in the Depression, and the second lecture of One Writer’s Beginnings is called “Learning to See”. A single photograph of a woman ironing in a post office gave her “Why I Live at the P.O.”; her stories often start from what a person looks like in one place, at one moment.
Her other gift is the ear. Several of her best-known works are told by talkers: the aggrieved sister of “Why I Live at the P.O.”, Edna Earle in The Ponder Heart, the whole Renfro and Beecham clan in Losing Battles, which is carried almost entirely by dialogue. The comedy comes from letting people explain themselves at length, and the reader seeing more than they do.
She mostly stays inside one place, yet she layers myth and fairy tale over it: Grimm in The Robber Bridegroom, Greek and Celtic myth in The Golden Apples. When she did write about the politics of her own state, in “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, she did it from inside the killer’s head, saying afterwards: “Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place.”
Frequently asked questions about Eudora Welty’s books
How many books has Eudora Welty written?
She published five novels and novellas, four story collections (gathered in The Collected Stories, 1980), a children’s book, and several books of essays, memoir and photographs. Eleven are the key books on this page, from A Curtain of Green (1941) to One Writer’s Beginnings (1984).
What are Eudora Welty’s books in order?
A Curtain of Green (1941), The Robber Bridegroom (1942), The Wide Net (1943), Delta Wedding (1946), The Golden Apples (1949), The Ponder Heart (1954), The Bride of the Innisfallen (1955), Losing Battles (1970), The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), The Collected Stories (1980) and One Writer’s Beginnings (1984).
Where should I start with Eudora Welty?
The Optimist’s Daughter, a short, complete novel that won the Pulitzer Prize. If you prefer stories, start with A Curtain of Green, which contains “A Worn Path” and “Why I Live at the P.O.”.
What is Eudora Welty’s most famous book?
The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973. Her single most famous piece is probably the story “A Worn Path”, from A Curtain of Green (1941).
Did Eudora Welty win the Pulitzer Prize?
Yes, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973, for The Optimist’s Daughter. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980 and several O. Henry Awards for her stories.
Which Eudora Welty books have been adapted?
The Ponder Heart became a Broadway play in 1956, an opera by Alice Parker in 1982 and a PBS television film in 2001. The Robber Bridegroom became a Broadway musical by Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman in 1975; Barry Bostwick won a Tony for the 1976 production.
What is “Why I Live at the P.O.” about?
A woman who works as postmistress in a small Mississippi town explains, at length and in her own voice, why she has moved out of the family home after a quarrel with her sister and moved into the post office. It is in A Curtain of Green (1941). Welty said a photograph she took of a woman ironing in a small post office started it.
What did Eudora Welty write about Medgar Evers?
After the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson in June 1963, Welty wrote “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, narrated by the killer. The New Yorker published it on 6 July 1963, soon after Byron De La Beckwith’s arrest. It is in The Collected Stories.
Was Eudora Welty a photographer?
Yes. Working for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, she photographed daily life across Mississippi. A selection was published as One Time, One Place (1971), and a larger one as Photographs (1989).
When did Eudora Welty die?
On 23 July 2001, in Jackson, Mississippi, where she was born in 1909 and lived most of her life. She was 92.
Footnotes
- Eudora Welty — Wikipedia
- Eudora Welty, 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — The Pulitzer Prizes
- The Optimist’s Daughter — Wikipedia
- The Ponder Heart — Wikipedia
- One Writer’s Beginnings — Wikipedia
- A universal region: the fiction of Eudora Welty — The New Criterion
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“A sheltered life can be a daring life as well.”
— Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings (1984)
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