Eudora Welty Critical Essay | Critical Review by Maureen Howard

SOURCE: "A Collection of Discoveries," in The New York Times Book Review, November 2, 1980, pp. 1, 31, 32.

In the following review, Howard discusses Welty's Collected Stories, and how her range developed throughout her career.

In reading The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, there is a particular pleasure in following her performance over the years. Her range is remarkable—her way of telling us that stories are as different as human faces, that beyond the common features of plot and narrative, there are discoveries to be made each time. In "A Memory" (which seems to be about her childhood), she writes, "To watch everything about me I regarded grimly and possessively as a need." Now, with all the stories gathered together, we can see with what vigilance she has continued to watch the world around her. She has transformed that early obsession into the vision of a magnificent American artist.