A Curtain Of Green: and Other Stories

Eudora Welty's first published collection of short stories demands a certain amount of patience from the reader.

Her prose is flawless and vivid, yet often her stories are like vignettes, where an ordinary individual undergoes a significant event. The endings are not always fulfilling, and a large part of interpreting the story is left to the reader. Some of the stories feature humorous small-town dialogue, but upon closer examination, there is often a darker undertone.

The collection includes various stories, each with a rating and a brief blurb. For example, "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies" earns a 4/5 rating. It is a funny tale with a dark undertone, revolving around a mentally challenged young lady in a small town. "A Piece of News" gets a 3/5 rating and delves into a wife's inner thoughts as she awaits her husband's return home. "The Petrified Man" also has a 3/5 rating and consists of conversations between two women in a beauty parlor.

Other stories in the collection include "The Key," "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden," "Why I Live at the P.O.," "The Whistle," "The Hitch-Hikers," "A Memory," "Clytie," "Old Mr. Marblehall," "Flowers for Marjorie," "A Curtain of Green," "A Visit of Charity," "Death of a Traveling Salesman," "Powerhouse," and "A Worn Path." Each story offers a unique perspective and exploration of different themes and characters.

I have been in love with Eudora Welty's stories ever since I first came across "Why I Live at the Post Office" during my college days.

Revisiting this particular story and numerous others, and reading them with the perspective gained from a lifetime of experiences, truly enhances their flavor and makes them even more delightful.

Each time I pick up one of her works, I am transported into a world filled with rich characters, vivid descriptions, and complex emotions.

The stories seem to unfold like a beautiful tapestry, revealing new layers and meanings with each reading.

Eudora Welty's writing has a unique charm that captivates the reader and leaves a lasting impression.

It is as if she has a magical touch that brings her fictional worlds to life and makes them feel real and tangible.

Whether it is the small-town dramas, the relationships between characters, or the exploration of human nature, her stories have a depth and authenticity that is truly remarkable.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have discovered her works and to have the opportunity to continue exploring them throughout my life.

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: In her now-famous introduction to this first collection by a then-unknown young writer from Mississippi named Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter wrote that "there is even in the smallest story a sense of power in reserve which makes me believe firmly that, splendid beginning that it is, it is only the beginning." Porter was of course prophetic, and the beginning was splendid. A Curtain of Green both introduced and established Eudora Welty as an instinctive genius of short fiction. In this groundbreaking collection, which includes "Powerhouse" and "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden," are the first great works of a great American writer.

My Review: Her first collection of stories was published the same year as her first story appeared in print! ("A Worn Path" in Atlantic Monthly {as it was then}, in 1941.) Diarmuid Russell, the superagent of his era, sold the collection on the strength of that to a friend of Miss Eudora's who was working at Doubleday, Doran (as it was then). That, laddies and gentlewomen, is damn near inconceivable to today's publishing professionals. A collection by an unknown barely published writer getting published by a major house? Who's she sleepin' with?

The Muses. She was a gifted writer, and stories were her perfect métier. It's a first book, though, and no matter how hard one tries, there is the inevitability of imperfection and probability of overexuberance. Here:

Night fell. The darkness was thin, like some sleazy dress that has been worn and worn for many winters and always lets the cold through to the bones. Then the moon rose. A farm lay quite visible, like a white stone in water, among the stretches of deep woods in their colorless dead leaf. By a closer and more searching eye than the moon's, everything belonging to the Mortons might have been seen--even to the tiny tomato in their neat rows closest to the house, gray and featherlike, appalling in their exposed fragility. The moonlight crossed everything, and lay upon the darkest shape of all, the farmhouse where the lamp had just been blown out.

First paragraph, "The Whistle" in A Curtain of Green. That's a lovely word-picture, and a kind of eerie mood-setting image. It's also too long and just a widge overwritten. But the story, a chilling little piece, is plenty interesting. It's always good to have an isolated farmhouse with a married couple basking in pale moonlight when something unexplained and menacing in its unexpectedness happens. The story left me physically chilled. And it's not her best work.

I am a major partisan of "Why I Live at the P.O." as among the great stories of the American South's culture. It's a flawlessly built, amusingly written moment in a family's life, a piece of time that any Southern boy with sisters or maternal aunts can not only relate to but practically choreograph.

So I hope to tell you I marched in and got that radio, and they could of all bit a nail in two, especially Stella-Rondo, that it used to belong to, and she well knew she couldn't get it back, I'd sue for it like a shot. And I very politely took the sewing-machine motor I helped pay the most on to give Mama for Christmas back in 1929, and a good big calendar, with the first-aid remedies on it. The thermometer and the Hawaiian ukulele certainly were rightfully mine, and I stood on the step-ladder and got all my watermelon-rind preserves and every fruit and vegetable I'd put up, every jar.

"Why I Live at the P.O." from A Curtain of Green. Two sisters have a spat about a man, and the family weighs in. Hijinks ensue. It's a chestnut now, it was a chestnut then, and it's damn good and hilarious.

This is my idea of a good story collection, and the writer who created this first crack out of the box is my idea of gifted. There is not one thing I'd say to her except "well done, Miss Eudora" if she stood right here in front of me, not one little hint of a frown or trace of a doubt in my voice. Make those mistakes and make 'em big, Miss Eudora, because if this is the FIRST then the BEST is gonna knock "good" right into "superb." And it did.

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen expounds on his belief that everyone can be classified into either the horrible or the miserable. In these stories by Welty, there is a keen focus on the horrible, yet there is still some allowance for the merely miserable.

The writing is robust. Frequently, I was astounded by the quality of the writing. At other junctures, I had the impression that she was striving too forcefully, and it was as if one was trudging through a quagmire of similes. However, typically, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, and even paragraph-by-paragraph, I considered the writing to be truly excellent.

And yet, I encountered great difficulty in engaging with these stories. They were severely lacking in story content and were more akin to vignettes. In the finest of them, it was like a written rendition of a Diane Arbus photo. But in others, I found myself pondering why Welty was crafting such a nice sketch and then failing to do anything with it. It is possible that it has something to do with Welty herself, but I also believe that I have largely lost whatever penchant I once had for Southern gothic.

Read this while holding keys tuning organs. Lol. I love her already so I am biased. But this story collection really blew me away.

The story "A Worn Path" is a classic. It展现了南方生活的坚韧与美好. I really liked "A Memory" and "Death of A Travelling Salesman". Both are haunting and lyrical. They draw you in with their beautiful language and vivid descriptions.

I am not crazy about the story "the Hitchhikers" which is a popular one of hers as well. Maybe it's just not my cup of tea.

Please treat yourself to these wonderful tales by this great writer of the American South. Her stories are like a window into a different world, full of charm and mystery. You won't be disappointed.

Some of these works felt a bit outdated or had certain issues. However, for the most part, they were truly amazing.

We have these little insignificant people dealing with their little insignificant problems. It all seems so bleak and desolate.

"Flowers for Marjorie," "The Whistle," and "A Memory" were my three absolute favorites. "A Memory" in particular makes the world appear so disgustingly real. It's just so good.

The way the stories are crafted, the characters are developed, and the emotions are evoked is truly remarkable. Each one offers a unique perspective and takes the reader on a journey through different lives and experiences.

Even though some of the themes may be a bit heavy or the situations a bit depressing, there is still something captivating about them. They make you think, feel, and question.

Overall, these works are a testament to the power of literature to touch our hearts and minds.

Eudora Welty is an absolutely incredible writer.

I have heard the highest praise of her work from Walker Percy, and I have been really interested to know that they were friends. (It's quite interesting that they liked to talk about "Days of Our Lives" together. Ha!)

It took me a few stories to get fully accustomed to her unique style. However, her remarkable ability to effortlessly drop you into a completely different world and cover such a wide variety of different types of characters is truly amazing.

From this collection, I have a particular fondness for several stories. "Death of a Traveling Salesman" is one that really stands out, with its engaging plot and well-developed characters. "Worn Path" is another gem, filled with beautiful descriptions and a sense of determination. "Clytee" is also a great story, exploring complex emotions and relationships. "Why I Live at the PO" is a humorous and charming tale that keeps you entertained from start to finish. And finally, "A Visit of Charity" is a thought-provoking story that leaves a lasting impression.

Overall, Eudora Welty's writing is a joy to read, and I can't wait to explore more of her work.

I read this first short story collection by Eudora Welty after delving into “What There is to Say We Have Said, the Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell. From reading the letters that passed between those two, I came to hold her in great admiration.

This collection of short stories left a profound impression on me, as I'm sure it has on thousands of others. There are likely other reviews here that offer hints or more than hints about the content of the 17 stories. I'll say that many of the short stories were raw, and dare I say, at least to me, some were quite depressing. But she was simply writing about what life was like for a diverse range of people from different walks of life in Jackson, Mississippi, back in the late 1930s and early 1940s. I liked her writing style. Supposedly, she was writing at a very early age, and it came naturally to her. Several of the stories resonated with me. One of them, and it happens to be one of the few humorous works in the collection, is “Why I live at the P.O.” And to think it was initially rejected by 6 well-known publications at that time! There were several that I found to be touchingly and wonderfully written but quite sad. So I would only suggest that if you're feeling blue and want a pick-me-up, save these for another day (but do read them): The Key, The Whistle, Clytie, Flowers for Marjorie, Death of a Traveling Salesman, and A Worn Path.

I was curious about when each of the short stories was originally published, where her first short story was published, and so on. So I did some research and discovered their first publications and some other interesting details.

A Curtain of Green (Eudora Welty’s first short story collection, 1941, Doubleday Doran, issued 2,476 copies @ $2.50)

The stories in the book appear in the following order:

1. Lily Daw and the Three Ladies (revision of story published in Winter edition of Prairie Schooner, 1937)

2. A Piece of News (first published in The Southern Review, Vol. 3 No. 1, Summer 1937)

3. Petrified Man (first published in The Southern Review, Vol. 4 No. 4, Spring 1939, originally rejected by this periodical in 1937, in fact, in the rejection letter, Robert Penn Warren, then managing editor, called it “flawed”)

4. The Key (first published in Harper’s Bazaar, 1941)

5. Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden (first published in New Directions in Prose and Poetry 1940)

6. Why I Live at the P.O. (first published in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 167, No. 4, Apr, 1941), had been rejected by The New Yorker, Collier’s, Harper’s Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Mademoiselle, and Harper’s Magazine

7. The Whistle (first published in Prairie Schooner, 1938)

8. The Hitch-Hikers (first published in The Southern Review, Vol. 5 No. 2, Autumn 1939)

9. A Memory (first published in The Southern Review, 1937)

10. Clytie (first published in The Southern Review, Vol. 7 No. 1, Summer 1941) interesting blurb about Clytie: http://hansen2307.blogspot.com/2014/0...

11. Old Mr. Marblehall (first published in The Southern Review, Spring 1938, ‘As Old Mr. Granada’)

12. Flowers for Marjorie (first published in Prairie Schooner, 1937), rejected by The Southern Review when Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren were managing editors, in fact, in the rejection letter, RPW called it “flawed”.

13. A Curtain of Green (first published in The Southern Review, Vol. 4 No. 2, Autumn 1938)

14. A Visit of Charity (first published in Decision, a small literary journal in 1941, that famously was rejected 13 times by various magazines in the early 1940s, including The Atlantic Monthly and Ladies Home Journal. It was finally published in a small literary magazine for which Welty was paid $30. See: https://coffeespew.org/2009/04/20/eud...

15. Death of a Traveling Salesman (first published in Manuscript, 1936, first published short story of Ms. Welty)

16. Powerhouse (first published in The Southern Review, Vol. 167, No. 6, Jun, 1941, originally rejected by this periodical)

17. A Worn Path (first published in The Atlantic Monthly, 1941)