SOURCE: Hoffman, Frederick J. “Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers.” In The Art of Southern Fiction: A Study of Some Novelists, pp. 51–9, 63–5. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967.

In the following essay, Hoffman explains Welty's use of location in her writing.

In terms of career, Eudora Welty belongs to the middle generation of modern Southern writers. Her first publication was a short story of amazing effectiveness, “Death of a Traveling Salesman,” which appeared in a Detroit little magazine, Manuscript, for June, 1936.¹ From 1936 through 1955 there was a burst of activity, with seven books, four novels, and three collections of stories published. Since 1955, with the exception of fiction and nonfiction pieces in magazines, she has slowed down considerably.

Since Miss Welty has spent much of her creative talent on places in Mississippi, the subject of place has been very important to her. Not that she is a regionalist, or a local-colorist, but...