About this ebook
Letters revealing a lost literary world—and a unique friendship between a brilliant author and a New Yorker editor.
For over fifty years, Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, two of our most admired writers, penned letters to each other. They shared their worries about work and family, literary opinions and scuttlebutt, and moments of despair and hilarity. Living half a continent apart, their friendship was nourished and maintained by their correspondence.
What There Is to Say We Have Said bears witness to Welty and Maxwell’s editorial relationship—both in Maxwell’s capacity as New Yorker editor and in their collegial back-and-forth on their work. It’s also a chronicle of the literary world of the time; they talk of James Thurber, William Shawn, Katherine Anne Porter, J. D. Salinger, Isak Dinesen, William Faulkner, John Updike, Virginia Woolf, Walker Percy, Ford Madox Ford, John Cheever, and many more. It is a treasure trove of reading recommendations.
Here, Suzanne Marrs—Welty’s biographer and friend—offers an unprecedented window into two intertwined lives. Through careful collection of more than three hundred letters as well as her own insightful introductions, she gives us “a vivid snapshot of 20th-century intellectual life and an informative glimpse of the author-editor relationship, as well a tender portrait of devoted friendship” (Kirkus Reviews).
For over fifty years, Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, two of our most admired writers, penned letters to each other. They shared their worries about work and family, literary opinions and scuttlebutt, and moments of despair and hilarity. Living half a continent apart, their friendship was nourished and maintained by their correspondence.
What There Is to Say We Have Said bears witness to Welty and Maxwell’s editorial relationship—both in Maxwell’s capacity as New Yorker editor and in their collegial back-and-forth on their work. It’s also a chronicle of the literary world of the time; they talk of James Thurber, William Shawn, Katherine Anne Porter, J. D. Salinger, Isak Dinesen, William Faulkner, John Updike, Virginia Woolf, Walker Percy, Ford Madox Ford, John Cheever, and many more. It is a treasure trove of reading recommendations.
Here, Suzanne Marrs—Welty’s biographer and friend—offers an unprecedented window into two intertwined lives. Through careful collection of more than three hundred letters as well as her own insightful introductions, she gives us “a vivid snapshot of 20th-century intellectual life and an informative glimpse of the author-editor relationship, as well a tender portrait of devoted friendship” (Kirkus Reviews).
About the author
Suzanne Marrs is a professor of English and Welty Foundation Scholar-in-Residence at Millsaps College. Her award-winning books about Eudora Welty include One Writer’sImagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty (2002), Eudora Welty: A Biography (2005), and What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell (2011), which she edited. Marrs lives in Jackson, Mississippi.
Tom Nolan has been a freelance writer since age eighteen and has contributed to dozens of magazines and newspapers, including Rolling Stone, Ploughshares, and Oxford American. For twenty-five years he has reviewed crime fiction for the Wall Street Journal. Nolan’s book Ross MacDonald: A Biography (1999)—for which he interviewed Eudora Welty—was nominated for the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, and the Macavity Award (which it won). His most recent work is Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet: His Life and Times (2011). He lives in Glendale, California.
Tom Nolan has been a freelance writer since age eighteen and has contributed to dozens of magazines and newspapers, including Rolling Stone, Ploughshares, and Oxford American. For twenty-five years he has reviewed crime fiction for the Wall Street Journal. Nolan’s book Ross MacDonald: A Biography (1999)—for which he interviewed Eudora Welty—was nominated for the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, and the Macavity Award (which it won). His most recent work is Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet: His Life and Times (2011). He lives in Glendale, California.
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