Collates the sixty-nine reviews of seventy-six books that were published between 1942 and 1984 by the well-regarded author.

Writing the Private Eye Novel is a vaulable resource for anyone who wants to try to make a living writing detective fiction. Obviously, there is no formula that guarantees success, but in this collection of essays from working authors, you can get a very good idea of what you should be thinking about and where to direct your creative energy.

Suzanne Vega is a poet of the urban streets whose passionate eye catches the motion and vibrant color of the life that surrounds us all. In this volume are her collected writings: poems and stories; song lyrics and overheard conversations; remembrances of times past and faraway countries.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty's writing and photography were the subject of more than one thousand reviews, of which over two hundred are collected here. From the first, reviewers loved Welty's language and disparaged her lack of plot. Their eager anticipation for the next book is rarely diminished by the shock of reading entirely different styles of writing. Her work was admired even as it challenged its readers. The reviews selected for reprinting here represent the diversity of Welty's reception and assessment. Reviews from small towns, urban centers, noted fiction writers, professional reviewers, academics, and everyday readers are included. The comments of reviewing rivals such as the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, Nation and New Yorker, when read side by side, reveal the nuances both of the reviewers and of the work of this important Southern writer.

A Tyrannous Eye: Eudora Welty’s Nonfiction and Photographs is the first book-length study of Eudora Welty’s full range of achievements in nonfiction and photography. A preeminent Welty scholar, Pearl Amelia McHaney offers clear-eyed and complex assessments of Welty’s journalism, book reviews, letters, essays, autobiography, and photographs. Each chapter focuses on one genre, filling in gaps left by previous books. With keen skills of observation, finely tuned senses, intellect, wit, awareness of audience, and modesty, Welty applied her genius in all that she did, holding a tough line on truth, breaking through “the veil of indifference to each other’s presence, each other’s wonder, each other’s plight.” McHaney’s study brings critical attention to the under-evaluated genres of Welty’s work and discusses the purposeful use of arguments, examples, and styles, demonstrating that Welty pursued her craft to a high standard across genres with a greater awareness of context than she admitted in her numerous interviews. Welty consistently dared new styles, new audiences, and new publishing venues in order to express her ideas to their fullest. It is “serious daring,” as she wrote in One Writer’s Beginnings, that makes for great writing. In “Place in Fiction,” Welty asks, “How can you go out on a limb if you do not know your own tree? No art ever came out of not risking your neck. And risk—experiment—is a considerable part of the joy of doing.”

Originally published: San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books, 2006.