The Golden Apples

The Golden Apples
First edition cover
PublisherHarcourt Brace Javanovich
Publication date
1949
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages277
OCLC290903

The Golden Apples is a short story collection written by Eudora Welty, first published in 1949. The stories form an interrelated cycle, which explores the economic and social plight of the fictional Morgana Mississippi.[1] Author Katherine Anne Porter wrote the introduction to the volume.[2][3][4]

The characters in Welty's stories are influenced by classical myth, myth, and rural forklore.[5] Her appreciation of poet William Butler Yeats also informed the collection.[6]

Stories

  • "Shower of Gold" (The Atlantic, May 1948)
  • "June Recital" (Harper's Bazaar, September 1947; a.k.a. "Golden Apples")
  • "Sir Rabbit" (The Hudson Review, Spring 1949)
  • "Moon Lake" (The Sewanee Review, Summer 1949)
  • "The Whole World Knows" (Harper's Bazaar, March 1947)
  • "Music from Spain" (Levee Press, Music From Spain, pub. June 1948)
  • "The Wanderers" (Harper's Bazaar, March 1949; a.k.a. "The Hummingbirds")

Retrospective appraisal

Reexamining the collection in 2011, The Independent critic David Evans described the collection as evocative, "But it is her vivid evocations of nature that linger."[1] Another 2011 review in The Guardian wrote that the collection is "brilliantly capturing the precise timbre of a fleeting moment and revealing its startling load."[7]

Critic Pierpont, Claudia Roth reports that "the complex and deeply moving" "June Recital" was "the most personally meaningful of all her stories...which became the centerpiece" of the collection.[8]

Literary critic Daniele Pitavy-Souques regards The Golden Apples as "the central book" in Welty's body of fiction.[9]

Theme

The stories use shared themes and other literary devices to ensure that the stories operate as a unified whole.[10] One reviewer noted that "Allusion and metaphor hang as thick as Spanish moss in Welty's prose."[7]

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b "The Golden Apples, By Eudora Welty". The Independent. August 20, 2011. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022. Retrieved May 3, 2016.
  2. ^ Welty, 2001 p. viii: Preface
  3. ^ Johnston, 1997 p. 27: "...the interconnected stories of The Golden Apples..." And: p. 74: "...a grouping of interconnected stories..."
  4. ^ Marrs, 2005 p. 159: "...interlocking stories..."
  5. ^ Johnston, 1997 p. 62
  6. ^ Marrs, 2005 p. 23
  7. ^ a b Ransley, Lettie (September 3, 2011). "The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty – review". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved May 3, 2016.
  8. ^ Pierpont, 1998
  9. ^ Johnston, 1997 p. 179
  10. ^ V. HARRIS, Wendell (Spring 1964). "The Thematic Unity of Welty's The Golden Apples". Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 6 (1): 92–95. JSTOR 40753802.

Sources

Further reading

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