Some Notes on River Country

by Eudora Welty

The Mississippi river country from Vicksburg to Natchez was a source and a setting for several of Eudora Welty's early stories and for her novel The Robber Bridegroom . Her eloquent essay about this region, reprinted here with a selection of her black-and-white photographs, is a reflection on the development and history of these lands in the old American Southwest in a time before and in the years just after the Louisiana Purchase. Originally published in Harper's Bazaar in 1944, this piece evokes both the elemental terrain and notables who traversed it via the river and the Natchez Trace--Aaron Burr, the flatboatman Mike Fink, the villainous Harpe brothers, and John James Audubon, as well as assorted fire-and-brimstone preachers, bandits, planters, and Native Americans. In Some Notes on River Country , a dreamlike meandering through the landscape in eloquent prose and evocative photographs, Welty's empathetic presence is felt. Taking the reader on an imagined journey, Welty combines the genres of travel narrative, character study, and geographical history to give a grand tour of the region. This brilliant portrait of a place is both elegiac and animated as she shows how much has changed, how much can never be recovered, and how much of the old river country remains in its contemporary incarnation. The essay and photographs explore the Natchez Trace, Grand Gulf, Port Gibson, Vicksburg, Natchez, Rodney's Landing, and other locales, offering insight on their quirky denizens, their significant history, and their entrancing uniqueness. In this setting Welty discovered a presence and a sense of place that stimulated her artistic vision and imbued her work forever after.

Genres: Art

64 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

Eudora Alice Welty was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America.

Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived a significant portion of her life in the city's Belhaven neighborhood, where her home has been preserved. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, where she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.

During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her all over the state of Mississippi photographing people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs are One Time, One Place and Photographs.

Welty's true love was literature, not photography, and she soon devoted her energy to writing fiction. Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the legendary and oft-anthologized stories "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Petrified Man," and "A Worn Path." Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story, and was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, where, despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of her hometown.
Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 92, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson.

Excerpted and adopted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, “sense of place” is essential to my ability to enjoy a writer’s work. Eudora Welty’s emphasis on setting is what first drew me to her and what keeps me coming back to her stories. Her Notes and photographs give insight and show her attention to the details used to transport readers. As a reader and a former child of Mississippi, I’ll always be a fan.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully evocative. And you cannot argue with the penultimate conclusion: "Perhaps it is the sense of place that gives us the belief that passionate things, in some essence, endure." The ultimate conclusion is even more striking. So are the pictures.

[Cathy Houston · Rating 5 out of 5]

no one expresses a sense of place like Miss Eudora

[Dianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible little book. And woman. Is it any wonder those words and worlds and stories came from her pen? She spins history and visual landscapes of the River Country of Mississippi at Natchez. The reclaimed and yet to be relics of the past slowly, continually being uncovered and recovered by vines and banks and foliage. The essay is briefer than I thought and worth every syllable. And to my absolute delight there follow photographs of the very places she describes. Taken by her of course. A photograph of a fisherman throwing knives at a target with his young sons, she says simply, she took. She just rode down alone in the family car, found them quite pleasant. What a jewel-this place and of course her.