Mississippi Library Association

New Mississippi State University Libraries collection highlights Mississippi author

An exceptionally rare copy of Eudora Welty’s first book, A Curtain of Green, has been added to a collection-in-progress at Mississippi State University Libraries.
 
Mississippi State University English professor and editor of The Mississippi Quarterly Dr. Noel Polk is currently working with Mitchell Memorial Library’s Special Collections department to create the Noel Polk Collection, which will feature books, papers, and memorabilia on Mississippi authors.  In May, Dr. Polk, both a Welty and Faulkner scholar, donated to the Collection a rare copy of Mississippi author Eudora Welty’s first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green.  This 1941 edition, with an introduction by author Katherine Anne Porter, is unique in that it is signed by both Welty and Porter.

“I have spent the better part of four decades looking at Welty first editions,” Polk said, “and this is the only copy of A Curtain of Green that I have ever seen signed by Welty and Porter.”
 
“The double autograph makes this book extremely valuable,” said Dr. Lynne Mueller, coordinator for MSU Libraries’ Mississippiana and Rare Books division.  “With the Libraries’ Welty Collection, Dr. Polk’s collection will greatly increase the University’s researchable holdings on major Mississippi authors.”
 
In April, MSU Libraries announced the acquisition of another premiere Eudora Welty Collection, donated to MSU by Hunter Cole, a Jackson, Miss., historian and former associate director of the University Press of Mississippi.
 
For more information on the Noel Polk and Eudora Welty Collections at Mississippi State University Libraries, please visit http://library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/index.asp or contact the Special Collections department at 662-325-7679.

Photo by Jim Tomlinson, MSU Libraries

Mississippi State University Libraries’ Dr. Lynne Mueller (left) accepts Welty’s Green from Dr. Noel Polk to be added to his Collection at Mitchell Memorial Library.

Submitted by:
Lyle Tate
Special Events
Mississippi State University Libraries

Entry Filed under: News
Posted on: August 6th, 2009