Death and Taxes.
Eudora Welty to Ella Somerville, 1946-1973
including an original manuscript
with
Vasser Bishop correspondence
In correspondence spanning four decades to Ella Somerville (cousin of feminist Lucy Somerville Howorth, acquaintance of William Faulkner, and proprietress of a literary salon and tea shop in Oxford, Mississippi), Eudora Welty vividly writes regarding literature, her own writing, mutual acquaintances, family, and more. Notably, accompanying one of the letters is Welty’s original typescript for a three-page satirical essay, “The Penalties of Writing Delta Wedding,” in which she parodies Frances Parkinson Keyes’ September 1950 Atlantic article, “The Cost of a Best-Seller.”
Breakdown of correspondence from Welty to Somerville (51 items):
• 20 autograph letters signed, most 2-4 pp.
• 9 typed letters signed, most 1-2 pp.
• 8 ANS; 9 APCS; and 5 holiday cards signed
Manuscript material:
• “The Penalties of Writing Delta Wedding,” typescript carbon, 3 pp.; with Welty’s ms revision to page two. In the accompanying letter of December 12, 1950, she writes to Somerville, “Do you remember Mrs. Keyes’ piece we all read in your house that day in the Atlantic? I got hold of a copy […] and of course couldn’t resist matching it, so I put in a carbon for you – how could it beat Mrs. Keyes, though.” Keyes, the wife of a New Hampshire governor, had written at length (and without irony) on the labors of writing a best-selling novel; Welty responded with a hilarious account of her personal travails, particularly those endured while composing Delta Wedding. She tirelessly recounts occupational hazards – in this case, malaria, snakes, voodoo spells, and floods – and the burdens of rigorous authorial research, including her purchase of a plantation and subsequent employment of “some 2,500 people,” not to mention marriage itself, “since the title of my novel was to be Delta Wedding, it was also in the cards that I marry, as I had never had time to do this before...”
Additional material:
• Presentation copy of an essay by Welty, “Henry Green: A Novelist of the Imagination,” reprinted from The Texas Quarterly, Special Issue: Britain 2 (Autumn 1961). Inscribed on front endpaper, For Ella with love and wishes from Eudora / Have you read Loving?
• Correspondence from Welty to Vasser Bishop, 1975 – 1987; 7 items (1 TLS, 6 ALS). Ella Vasser Bishop was a relative of Ella Somerville who worked at the University of Mississippi as Coordinator of Independent Study and lived in Somerville’s house in Oxford after she died. Welty visited her in Oxford for both professional and social occasions, and writes to Bishop about the pleasure of seeing her in “the dear house where I’d been so happy on earlier visits.”
• Welty, Eudora. Fairy Tale of the Natchez Trace. First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed by the author: For Vasser, in her home of which I’ve such long affection, and with much affection for her, from Eudora, Oxford, March 5, 1976.
• Handwritten invitation to “Miss Ella Somerville” from Mr. & Mrs. William Faulkner, in Estelle Faulkner’s hand, to an event celebrating their daughter Jill’s marriage [1958].
• A few items of printed matter, including a program for Nov. 1977 Welty symposium and photocopy of Faulkner’s “To the Voters of Oxford.”
Though Welty and Somerville had several mutual acquaintances, their correspondence begins before they met in person, with Welty responding to Somerville’s “nice letter,” presumably written in regard to her 1946 novel Delta Wedding. From the outset, Welty and Somerville discuss literary topics, with Welty’s first letter including her response to E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel: “Do you like Forster? I do so much, and wish I could find every word of his, part of him’s scattered in little pamphlets and lectures and even guide books it seems. – Still I don’t know if I agree that even the most glorious book characters, most visible, are or can be or ever should be more real than real & baffling people…” There is also a substantial amount on William Faulkner, whose work Welty reads for the first time in 1946 after Somerville loans her several Faulkner books (Somerville is also likely responsible for introducing Welty to Faulkner). Welty candidly inquires at one point, “Somebody was going around Jackson saying he was slated for the Nobel Prize – what’s the word there?” and later writes, “Light in August particularly seems among the truly tremendous books we have in our day – do you think so?”
Other literary figures mentioned throughout the letters include writer Elizabeth Spencer and New York Times critic Frank Lyell, both of whom were friends with Welty and Somerville, and British author Elizabeth Bowen. Welty discusses her own work frequently, mentioning being busy writing, “skirmishing” with her editor, giving lectures, and working on movie adaptations of The Intruder and The Robber Bridegroom. In 1949, she writes excitedly about the “wonderful boon” of receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship grant, and later writes while travelling in Paris and Italy. She also discusses personal matters and family life with her mother, brothers and nieces, especially in later years as she deals with her mother’s declining health. Overall, these letters detail a long, rich friendship between two literary Southern women.
Correspondence highlights:
ANS, “Eudora” to Ella, 4 pp.; undated; envelope postmarked June 13, 1946; writing on Faulkner, in part:
You were noble to let the Faulkners out of your house and let me read them – many thanks – they went back to you yesterday – It was good to get hold of them, impossible in Jackson and what an experience I’ve gone without up to now. Light in August particularly seems one of the truly tremendous books we have in our day—do you think so? It is wonderful – and thanks again…
ANS, “Eudora” to Ella, 4 pp., “New York, Monday”; postmarked June 1948; in part, commenting on Tennessee Williams, “Saw Streetcar tonight and couldn’t stand it a minute…”
TLS, “Eudora” to Ella, 2 pp., “January 10”; postmarked January 12, 1949; on writing, in part, “A lot of work has piled up on me, drudge work of typing up a short story collection and revising, plus two other wild projects your note finds me on – one I love – it’s writing a movie in collaboration with John, which I hope we’ll have finished and will tell you about it…”. John refers to lifelong friend and dedicatee of Welty’s first novel, John Frasier Robinson (1909-1989) of Mississippi.
On Faulkner again, discussing Edmund Wilson’s negative review of Intruder in the Dust. In response to Wilson, Welty had written to The New Yorker praising Faulkner; in turn, she received a personal response from Wilson and quotes to Somerville at length. Welty quotes Wilson’s admission that he’d written “without knowing much of F’s other work” – she indignantly asks Ella, “What do you think of his not having read our man?!”
TLS, “Eudora” to Ella, 2 pp., “Monday”; postmarked March 28, 1949; on Welty’s 1119 Pinehurst Street stationery; comments on writing – in part, “Publisher trying to tell me what the book is, what to call it, etc. and nuisances. I’m tired of it and in that low ebb finishing a book always puts me into.”
And on Faulkner, “Have you seen what they’re doing with our Intruder? The Mississippi spring must be on the hills and I hope they catch it in their film – dogwood and all, the turtles lying on the logs…”
TLS, “Eudora” to Ella, 2 pp.; postmarked April 18, 1949; sends Easter greetings and sketches an egg next to her signature.
TLS, “Eudora” to Ella, “Wednesday”; postmarked September 14, 1949; Welty discusses the frequent comparisons of her and Faulkner, mentioning The New Yorker in particular and writing, “How strange the things reviewers do say-- I’m living under a coincidence all right, coming from Miss. at the same time as a great man, but I don’t see why that’s any different from living at the same time as Einstein up in Princeton, N.J., as far as how good my book is goes.” Regarding a visit with Somerville, Welty writes, “It would be grand to see you in some strange port, like Algiers … at least we could have a cup of coffee under our nose veils.”
ALS, “Eudora” to Ella, 2 pp.; April 2, [ca. 1950]; visiting longtime friend and fellow writer Elizabeth Bowen, she begins, “I’m visiting [Elizabeth] in Bowen’s Court in County Cork, surely among the loveliest spots on the earth…”
(#13576)
Print Inquire
