What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell (original 2011; edition 2011)

by Suzanne Marrs

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Jaylia3's review

This is one of those wonderful books that will increase your “simply have to read” list exponentially. Eudora Welty and William Maxwell wrote to each other about the stories, articles and books they had written and read, causing my copy of this collection of their correspondence to be marked up with arrows, pointing to the books and old magazine pieces I want to find and read for myself. Both were writers, but Bill Maxwell was also Eudora Welty’s editor at the New Yorker, and the letters they wrote during the editing of her stories are a fascinating glimpse into that polishing aspect of the creative process. Maxwell was gentle and supportive, making suggestions but always allowing Welty to have the final say.

They were such close friends that they appeared in each other’s dreams. They used a lot of typewriter ribbon comparing notes on garden flowers, especially roses, and they wrote graceful prose descriptions of their lives and their impressions of some of the memorable events of the time, including presidential elections from Eisenhower to Clinton, the civil rights era of the 60’s, the Comet Kohoutek, the Mt. Saint Helens eruption, and the happenings in the literary world. The end notes are a treasure, with lots of interesting additional information. As I read I used two bookmarks so I could easily reference them. With letters written between 1942 and 1996, this book should be a delight to anyone interested in the literature of that not so long ago era. (

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Jaylia3 | May 9, 2011 |

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An extraordinary record of a deep and long friendship between two of America's finest writers. They had known and supported each other for over fifty years. They were family. And for a lot of the time Maxwell was Welty's editor, and the workings of their working relationship are sometimes found between these pages.

Alike in much of their early experience, always recommending and gifting new books or other cultural finds. Supportive of other creativity. Reporting on meetings with other writers, as in this report by Maxwell of meeting Isak Dinesen:

She herself at times looked like a falcon. Though we talked all through dinner, she didn't do more than consider and reply to my remarks, until the dessert, and then something, I forget what, the fact that I had just finished making a doll house, perhaps, for my daughter, made her melt, and she talked to me-but still not personally, not as if she liked me or ever wanted to see me again. But in such a way as to make me love her forever. Her voice is so beautiful, the accent isn't either British or American. It has notes that are like cello music. It's like listening to Hayden (Haydn). And those burning black eyes. It is several years too late to be her friend, but it is not too late to remember what she is like, as long as I live. p133.

Isn't Dinesen now vividly in your imagination?

It is also amazing to think that they each carried out multiple correspondences, although this was the closest to them both I think. How lucky we are to have it.

Of course I now want to read more of both of their stories, I just ordered Maxwell's complete stories, and am trying to put my hands on my volume of Welty's. (

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Caroline_McElwee | May 19, 2024 |

This is on my bedside table, and I dip in and out depending on my mood. Lovely writing -- I mean, Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, come on. Lots of writing about writing, the weather, growing roses. Not very gripping, but I like it a lot. (

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