Series Foreword by Cameron Northouse
Introduction
A Curtain of Green and Other Stories 1941
Full-Length Portrait by Kay Boyle
The Gothic South by Louise Bogan
Life for Phoenix by Neil D. Isaacs
Why Sister Lives at the P.O. by Charles E. May
The Robber Bridegroom 1942; The Violent Country by John Peale Bishop
American Fairy Tale by Lionel Trilling
The Uses of Enchantment in Frontier Humor and The Robber Bridegroom by Merrill Maguire Skaggs
Eudora Welty's Dance with Darkness: The Robber Bridegroom by Barbara Harrell Carson
The Wide Net and Other Stories 1943
Fiction in Review by Diana Trilling
Consolations of Poetry by Issac Rosenfield
Persephone in Eudora Welty's "Livvie" by Peggy W. Prenshaw
Delta Wedding 1946
Eudora Welty by Mary Alice Bookhart
Fiction in Review by Diana Trilling
Look Away, Look Away, Look Away by Hamilton Basso
The Problem of Time in Welty's Delta Wedding by Douglas Messerli
The Golden Apples 1949
Main Street in Dixie by Lee E. Cannon
Notes by the Way by Margaret Marshall
Five Southerners by Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
The Thematic Unity of Welty's The Golden Apples by Wendell V. Harris
The Ponder Heart 1954
Bossy Edna Earle Had a Word for Everything by V.S. Pritchett
Witless on the Delta by John Chapman
Edna Earle Ponder's Good Country People by John L. Idol, Jr.
Ponder Heart Now out in Dramatic Version by Frank Hains
Eudora Welty's The Ponder Heart Gets Rave Notices at Broadway by Bette E. Barber
The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories 1955
The Bride of the Innisfallen by Fred Bornhauser
Miss Welty Magnificent in Newest Short Pieces by Frank Hains
"The Sharp Edge of Experiment": The Poetics of "No Place for You, My Love" by Albert J. Devlin
General Criticism 1955-1969
Name and Symbol in the Prose of Eudora Welty by William M. Jones
Losing Battles 1970
Eudora Welty Talks about Her New Book, Losing Battles by Frank Hains
Eudora Welty's Losing Battles Is Magnificent Feast by Louis Dollarhide
Everything Brought out in the Open: Eudora Welty's Losing Battles by Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
Miss Welty's Wide World by Robert Drake
Speech and Silence in Losing Battles by James Boatwright
The Optimist's Daughter 1972
The Continuity of Love by James Boatwright
The Past Reexamined: The Optimist's Daughter by Cleanth Brooks
"The Freed Hands": The Power of Images in Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter by Kim Martin Long
General Criticism 1972-1979
Eudora Welty and the Use of Place in Southern Fiction by Elmo Howell
Eudora Welty: The Three Moments by John A. Allen
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty 1980
The Fine, Full World of Welty by Anne Tyler
Songs of the South by Walter Clemons
Journeys out of Separateness by Jennifer Uglow
A Visit with Eudora Welty by Anne Tyler
The Loving Vision by Robert Drake
General Criticism 1980-1993
Family in Eudora Welty's Fiction by Sara McAlpin BVM
On Welty's Use of Allusion: Expectations and Their Revision in "The Wide Net," The Robber Bridegroom and "At The Landing" by Harriet Pollack
Diverting Swine: The Magical Relevancies of Eudora Welty's Ruby Fisher and Circe by Dawn Trouard
Selected Other Readings
Index

Eudora Welty holds a prominent position among Southern writers, receiving critical attention in publications that scan a wide range of interests. Journals that specialize in American literature, journals that publish general essays, and journals that focus on Southern literature frequently include articles about her works. Her writings have been included in anthologies and have been adapted for the stage and television. This book traces the evolving critical response to her fiction.
In a lucid introductory essay, Champion presents an overview and summarizes the body of criticism on Welty's fiction. The rest of the volume presents representative selections of criticism from the initial reception of Welty's work to the present day. The selections are grouped in chapters devoted to Welty's principal writings. Her fiction is treated chronologically, and the selections within each chapter are also arranged in chronological order. Thus the book charts the development of Welty criticism over an extended period of time. A bibliography of works for further reading completes the volume.