[Signed] Losing Battles WELTY, Eudora [Near Fine] [Hardcover]

Description

Octavo, 436pp. A very godo or better copy in the publisher's green cloth, with a small area of fading at the spine due to a hole int he dust jacket. Dust jacket thus about very good, with the spine faded and a few closed tears. A magnificent association copy, SIGNED and INSCRIBED by Welty to her editor and longtime friend, Mary Louise Aswell, on the half-title page in the month before publication: ""For Mary Lou, So she can finish it, and at last! With my love and gratitude, Eudora. March 1970."" Aswell had been Welty's short story editor at Harper's Bazaar, where some of Welty's early stories first appeared. Their professional relationship soon developed into a lifelong friendship, which has been the subject of numerous critical essays, including Elizabeth Crews' essay, ""The Still-Existing Parts of Life,"" Part I: The Early Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Mary Louise Aswell."" Crews studies their correspondence to reveal a friendship with a shifting balance; in the beginning, Aswell was the successful figure; a woman with a plum editorship at a successful magazine. Over the decades, Welty became the major literaru figure, but their friendship was rooted on solid ground. Crews writes, ""For the majority of [the first fifteen years of their friendship], they were both single women navigating the literary and publishing world while also balancing personal finances, family obligations, and romantic relatinoships [.] They made each other better writers and better readers, and they unwaveringly believed in each other."" Crews, Elizabeth. (ref. ""‘The Still-Existing Parts of Life,' Part I: The Early Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Mary Louise Aswell."" Eudora Welty Review 11 (2019): 33-46.) A significant association copy, which documents the enduring friendship between these two literary women, decades after their first meeting.