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On Writing (Modern Library) [Hardcover]

Eudora Welty (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 24, 2002 Modern Library
Eudora Welty was one of the twentieth century’s greatest literary figures. For as long as students have been studying her fiction as literature, writers have been looking to her to answer the profound questions of what makes a story good, a novel successful, a writer an artist. On Writing presents the answers in seven concise chapters discussing the subjects most important to the narrative craft, and which every fiction writer should know, such as place, voice, memory, and language. But even more important is what Welty calls “the mystery” of fiction writing—how the writer assembles language and ideas to create a work of art.

Originally part of her larger work The Eye of the Story but never before published in a stand-
alone volume, On Writing is a handbook every fiction writer, whether novice or master, should keep within arm’s reach. Like The Elements of Style, On Writing is concise and fundamental, authoritative and timeless—as was Eudora Welty herself.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Welty (The Optimist's Daughter; The Golden Apples; One Writer's Beginnings), who died last year, was a master of the short story, of small town eccentricities, of dialogue and place and the messiness of human relationships-she was a writer's writer. Now, seven of her essays about the craft of fiction, taken from 1978's The Eye of the Story, are repackaged together in a little book that marks a welcome break from the myriad how-to-write-a-novel-in-six-weeks guides and good-natured but often ineffectual volumes of creative encouragement. In elegant and insightful investigations, Welty considers Hemingway's moralizing, Virginia Woolf's intellectual use of the senses, the "lowlier angel" of setting, the problem of polemical, crusading fiction and the novel as "an illusion come full circle" that "seems to include a good deal of the whole world." There is some advice to be had-narrative pleasure can arise from authorial obstruction, for example-but by and large this is a book of fond analysis, addressed to the serious reader and dedicated writer.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This dandy volume collects the seven essays Welty penned on writing between 1949 and 1973. These originally were printed in the 1978 volume The Eye of the Story and are presented solo here for the first time. She covers such subjects as place, voice, memory, and language and offers techniques writers can employ in producing short stories and novels. Anyone interested in writing or studying fiction would benefit from Welty's knowledge.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Modern Library; 2002 Modern Library Ed edition (September 24, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679642706
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679642701
  • Product Dimensions: 4.8 x 0.8 x 7.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #487,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Average Customer Review
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Title should be "On Literary Criticism", December 11, 2002
This review is from: On Writing (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
Eudora Welty was an icon of twentieth century literature. Her work reprinted here is straight out of my literary criticism classes of the sixties. All essays were originally published in the sixties and seventies. This book is useful for the student of literary criticism. It is NOT useful for the student of writing technique, characterization, short stories, plot development, use of place and time.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Not for Writers Only, November 4, 2002
This review is from: On Writing (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
It is unfortunate that most readers who make their way to this page will be writers for this collection of Eudora Welty's essays on the craft of writing is not just for writers.

Readers, too, will find wisdom and insight here. Wisdom to apply to their own lives. Insight into Welty's other works. That The Modern Library collected them is a gift in and of itself.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "Harkening"

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars great insights, August 16, 2010
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This review is from: On Writing (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
If you are a writer, or a lover of literature and literary writing, American in particular, Southern American even more so, this will be a pleasure.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Looking at short stories as readers and writers together should be a companionable thing. Read the first page
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ordinary novelist, spotted horses
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Miss Brill, Yellow Sky, William Faulkner
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