Welty is on home ground in the state of Mississippi in this collection of seven stories. She portrays the MacLains, the Starks, the Moodys, and other families of the fictitious town of Morgana. "I doubt that a better book about the South-one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life and its special tone and pattern-has ever been written" (New Yorker).

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations. "The Optimist's Daughter" is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding...

"Features the voices ... of twenty-six of the most luminous artists and thinkers in the American cultural firmament, from Eudora Welty, Pete Seeger, and Alice Walker to William Eggleston, Bobby Rush, and C. Vann Woodward ... drawn from one-on-one interviews conducted by folklorist William Ferris over the past forty years"--Dust jacket flap.

A compendium of commentary, criticism and oratory excellence from throughout the nation's history. From the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin to the outspoken empowerment of Gloria Steinem, from the satire of Mark Twain to the seriousness of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the collection offers the opportunity to learn the subtle arts of persuasion and rational argument as exemplified in these great American dissertations.