Early Escapades

by Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty (1909-2001), in her writing and in her conversation, had a dazzling and ironic wit. Many friends remember the laughter she provoked through her sense of the absurd. Early Escapades explores the initial manifestations of her comic and creative energy, from the poems of her adolescence to the promising parodies and caricatures she wrote and drew as a young adult. The compilation includes pen-and-ink drawings as well as caricatures, limericks, poems, essays, editorial pieces, and society notes written by the young Welty. The earliest example of her work here is a reproduction of a small handmade book she wrote and illustrated to entertain her brother Edward. Titled The Glorious Apology , the book is a collage of parodied newspaper and magazine clippings that tell the rollicking story of one Fitzhugh Green, son of the "whispering saxophonist" Artimus H. Green. Early Escapades offers a prelude to Welty's mature fiction where her sharp comic sensibilities focused on deeply rooted the ambiguity of relationships, the complex struggles for power in families and communities, the duality of people's perceptions. Her comedic work is a trenchant commentary on the way we lead our lives. Whether through her writings or drawings, Welty created laughter from the painful condition of being human. Early Escapades shows how Welty's art, even in its nascent stages, embraced the world's marvels, chaos, and mystery with passionate sympathy.

156 pages, Hardcover

First published October 30, 2005

About the author

Eudora Alice Welty was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America.

Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived a significant portion of her life in the city's Belhaven neighborhood, where her home has been preserved. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, where she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.

During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her all over the state of Mississippi photographing people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs are One Time, One Place and Photographs.

Welty's true love was literature, not photography, and she soon devoted her energy to writing fiction. Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the legendary and oft-anthologized stories "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Petrified Man," and "A Worn Path." Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story, and was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, where, despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of her hometown.
Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 92, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson.

Excerpted and adopted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Treasure Island Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have loved this book and given it a five-star review except for the fact that the first third was a jumbled mess. Pages were missing or duplicated from the back of the book. Some pages were blank. I know I was lucky to discover it at my local library, but it was a great disappointment to find that I could only read a portion of the brilliant comedy Eudora Welty displayed as a young woman. Yes, there is humor in her published writing, but the glimpse into her adolescent self made me love her work even more. Ho Hum. Maybe another day I will find a complete copy.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this at Faulkner House Books in New Orleans during the Jazz Festival. I probably should've just browsed it, but it was a fun souvenir! And the previous time I was in town I bought a book of Eudora Welty's photographs, which were taken in the South during the Depression. I think her photographs seem more optimistic and less stark than Walter Evan's work.

[Margie Ferguson]

This book shows the funny side of Welty as a young woman.

[Cathy Houston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welty's earliest writings but does preview of her voice in later works