Synopses & Reviews
Eavesdrop on one of the most celebrated literary friendships in American letters
"An epistolary feast for literary fans [and] a confidence booster for aspiring writers everywhere. A-" —Entertainment Weekly
"If friendship is an art, this volume is its masterpiece." —Lee Smith
"A remarkable testimony to friendship, literature, and an abiding love of life." —Richmond Times-Dispatch
What There Is to Say We Have Said bears witness to Welty and Maxwells more than fifty years of friendship and their lives as writers and readers. It serves as a chronicle of their literary world, their talk of Katherine Anne Porter, Salinger, Dinesen, Updike, Percy, Cheever, and more. Through more than three hundred letters, Marrs brings us the story of a true, deep friendship and an homage to the forgotten art of letter writing.
"A vivid picture of twentieth-century intellectual life and a record of a remarkable friendship... Glorious." —Houston Chronicle
"Full of great tidbits about The New Yorker back in the day ... Charming." —The New Yorker
"These letters evoke a lost world when events moved a bit more slowly, and friends could take the time to be both eloquently witty and generous with each other, and letters were unobtrusively artful about daily life. Welty and Maxwell are like two birds of the same species, calling to each other across the distances." —Charles Baxter
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“Marvelous...THE MITFORDS is quite simply one of the most sinful guilty pleasures of the season.” Baltimore Sun
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“Funny, loving, sparkly, snarky, heartbreaking, chilling, gossipy, wise….Youll be rewarded with six up-close, personal-and sometimes appalling-takes on the 20th century.” O magazine
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“Fascinating...The sisters had the stiff upper lip of their class, and, it must be said, a way with words.” Wall Street Journal
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“Fascinating...Their irresistible appeal comes from the way they invite us into the close family circle.” New York Times Book Review
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“An engrossing, deeply personal group portrait…Each letter is a thrilling gem unto itself…Marvelous fun.” Kirkus Reviews
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“Peppered with colorful nicknames, filled with love, encouragement, jealousy and gossip, and written primarily to amuse the recipients, the letters testify to the bonds of sisterhood.” Publishers Weekly
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“A splendid introduction to the eccentric charms of the Mitford world…On my short list of best books of the year.” Newsday
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“THE MITFORDS could have been an operatic group biography on an epic scale: Instead, thanks to its editors taste and discretion, it is chamber music with symphonic longings… an intriguing record of each sisters personality… all six could write evocatively, even hauntingly.” Washington Post Book World
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“Compelling…The letters are so affecting that it is difficult to refrain from wanting to get to know the sisters better.” St. Petersburg Times
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“Nothing captures their enduring allure quite like their own correspondence…With this epistolary testament to sisterhood, the mystery of the Mitfords...has at last been solved.” Vogue
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"A map into the very heart of friendship and creativity. Every page is a privilege to read."
—Ann Patchett
"An epistolary feast for literary fans [and] a confidence booster for aspiring writers everywhere. A-"
—Entertainment Weekly
"If friendship is an art, this volume is its masterpiece."
—Lee Smith
"A remarkable testimony to friendship, literature, and an abiding love of life...An invitation to draw up a chair and enjoy two good friends as interested in their rose gardens as their writing."
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
"A vivid picture of twentieth-century intellectual life and a record of a remarkable friendship... Glorious."
—Houston Chronicle
"Full of great tidbits about The New Yorker back in the day ... Charming."
—The New Yorker
"A raft of tender, day-to-day details ... Like eavesdroppers on a party line, were privy to everything ... In todays world of texting, Twitter and Facebook, where our empathy for others is often reduced to a ‘like button, coming across such a sustained account of a friendship is like shining a flashlight on the cave walls at Lascaux ... How fortunate we are that their kinship endured long enough for them to say everything there was to say."
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Beautifully expressive ... [Marrs] has performed an important service here ... A valuable record of the authors writing process ... Maxwell and Welty, of course, loved to write, and writers and readers will be awed to learn of both the macro and the micro."
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
"[Maxwell and Weltys] love, a source of sustenance and strength between two great writers, is also a bright tonic for the readers of this volume, which affirms Weltys belief that to read someones letters ‘is in some way to admit him to our friendship."
—Christian Science Monitor
"These loving and revealing letters guide us back to the fiction of both authors."
—Wall Street Journal
"A valuable portrait of a unique and lasting friendship, and a celebration of a certain kind of joy that is rapidly disappearing—the joy of writing and sending, receiving and reading personal letters."
—Tulsa World
"This collection of letters takes us into the world of Eudora and William. We get to see how their friendship deepened over time and became something special."
—San Francisco Book Review
"To read What There Is to Say We Have Said is to feel the noise and speed of the present era fall away, to sense the natural world reasserting itself. Time slows, and you arrive in a more pastoral moment."
—The Progressive Reader
"For 50 years, Welty and Maxwell communicated in full detail, with deep and genuine affection, serving up revelations about themselves that give these literary figures a greatly wonderful human dimension . . . This is one of the richest and most riveting collections of famous-people letters to emerge in some time." —Booklist
"Inspiring . . . A vivid snapshot of 20th-century intellectual life and an informative glimpse of the author-editor relationship, as well a tender portrait of devoted friendship."
—Kirkus Reviews
"The correspondence of this volume [is] gracefully edited and annotated by Weltys biographer Marrs . . . Both correspondents were blessed with personality-plus, mirrored in these letters."
—Publishers Weekly
"How rewarding to become the third person present in the discoveries of life and literature between Eudora Welty and William Maxwell. I have always believed the only ‘knowing one can have of a fiction writers is through the fiction itself; but here, in the personal medium of to-and-fro wit and vitality, is to be had further experience of the writer Eudora Welty, whose stories, in particular, have opened my vision of human relations."
—Nadine Gordimer
"Something truly special happened each time Eudora Welty and William Maxwell wrote a letter to the other. Suzanne Marrs has collected more than 300 of those letters and set them into a time and context. Anyone who relishes and celebrates the magic use of words, storytelling and friendship will treasure the end result forever."
—Jim Lehrer
"This book lets us in on the happy fact that two splendid writers, who did not sacrifice humanity to career, were warmly admitted to each others lives. Its generosity of tone is such that the readers feels not a trespasser but a guest. Suzanne Marrss editing is worthy of a delightful text."
—Richard Wilbur
"A complex improvisation carried on for years by two artists for whom nothing in the realm of literature or feeling was remote."
—Alec Wilkinson
"A literary revelation. Suzanne Marrss editing of this rich collection is superlative."
—Roger Mudd, journalist and broadcaster
Synopsis
"Fascinating" (Wall Street Journal) and "Irresistible" (New York Times Book Review), The Mitfords is the critically-acclaimed collection of the never-before-published letters of the legendary Mitford sisters
The Mitford sisters were the great wits and beauties of their time. Immoderate in their passions for ideas and people, they counted among their diverse friends Adolf Hitler and Queen Elizabeth II, Cecil Beaton and President Kennedy, Evelyn Waugh and Givenchy. As editor Charlotte Mosley notes, not since the Bront s have the members of a single family written so much about themselves, or have been so written about.
The Mitfords offers an unparalleled look at these privileged siblings through their own unabashed correspondence. Spanning the twentieth century, the magically vivid letters of the legendary Mitfords constitute a superb social and historical chronicle and an intimate portrait of the stormy but enduring relationships between six beautiful, gifted, and radically different women.
Synopsis
The Mitford sisters were the great wits and beauties of their time. Immoderate in their passions for ideas and people, they counted among their diverse friends Adolf Hitler and Queen Elizabeth II, Cecil Beaton and President Kennedy, Evelyn Waugh and Givenchy.
The Mitfords offers an unparalleled look at these privileged siblings through their own unabashed correspondence. Spanning the twentieth century, the magically vivid letters of the legendary Mitfords constitute a superb social and historical chronicle and an intimate portrait of the stormy but enduring relationships between six beautiful, gifted, and radically different women.
Synopsis
Suzanne Marrs—Welty's biographer and friend—has culled all the extant letters between Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, granting us a unique glimpse into the friendship of two of our country's most beloved literary icons. Bear witness to what began as a writer-editor relationship and bloomed into a life-long intimate conversation between two artists.
About the Author
SUZANNE MARRS is the author of Eudora Welty: A Biography and One Writer's Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty; the editor of What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell; and a recipient of the Phoenix Award for Distinguished Welty Scholarship. She is a professor of English at Millsaps College.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction 1
1. “Never Lose Letters from an Editor”: 1942-1943 17
2. “Wonderful to Be a Writer. Wonderful to Grow Roses.
Wonderful to Care”: 1943-1954 21
3. “Similar Discoveries”: 1954-1959 70
4. “Stubborn Enough to Be a Writer”: 1960-1966 141
5. “Your Heart Down on Paper”: 1966-1970 194
6. “So Much Honor Coming Down on My Head”: 1971-1980 278
7. “What There Is to Say We Have Said”: 1981-1996 370
Acknowledgments 445
Notes 446
Index 480