Julia Eichelberger is Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature at the College of Charleston. She is author of Prophets of Recognition: Ideology and the Individual in Novels by Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow, and Eudora Welty; editor of Tell about Night Flowers: Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949; and coeditor of Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First-Century Approaches. She has also written articles in the Eudora Welty Review, Mississippi Quarterly, and other publications. In 2016 she was honored with the Phoenix Award for outstanding contributions to the field of Welty studies.

• AcknowledgmentsEditorial NoteDramatis PersonaeIntroductionChapter 1: 1931–1939Chapter 2: 1940–1949Chapter 3: 1950–1959Chapter 4: 1959–1977NotesBibliographyIndex

"Set in the Depression, in the war years, and on the home front during the battle for civil rights, the letters in this stirring collection not only report what’s happening in Eudora Welty’s and Frank Lyell’s lives but also reveal their admixture of tastes that can amuse the funny bone or stir the intellect. To Absent Friends traces their enduring bond through more than forty years while documenting the evolution of Welty’s career and its path from Jackson, Mississippi, into her international acclaim." - Hunter Cole, author of The Legs Murder Scandal

Julia Eichelberger is Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature at the College of Charleston. She is author of Prophets of Recognition: Ideology and the Individual in Novels by Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow, and Eudora Welty; editor of Tell about Night Flowers: Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949; and coeditor of Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First-Century Approaches. She has also written articles in the Eudora Welty Review, Mississippi Quarterly, and other publications. In 2016 she was honored with the Phoenix Award for outstanding contributions to the field of Welty studies.

• AcknowledgmentsEditorial NoteDramatis PersonaeIntroductionChapter 1: 1931–1939Chapter 2: 1940–1949Chapter 3: 1950–1959Chapter 4: 1959–1977NotesBibliographyIndex

"Set in the Depression, in the war years, and on the home front during the battle for civil rights, the letters in this stirring collection not only report what’s happening in Eudora Welty’s and Frank Lyell’s lives but also reveal their admixture of tastes that can amuse the funny bone or stir the intellect. To Absent Friends traces their enduring bond through more than forty years while documenting the evolution of Welty’s career and its path from Jackson, Mississippi, into her international acclaim." - Hunter Cole, author of The Legs Murder Scandal

Julia Eichelberger is Marybelle Higgins Howe Professor of Southern Literature at the College of Charleston. She is author of Prophets of Recognition: Ideology and the Individual in Novels by Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow, and Eudora Welty; editor of Tell about Night Flowers: Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949; and coeditor of Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First-Century Approaches. She has also written articles in the Eudora Welty Review, Mississippi Quarterly, and other publications. In 2016 she was honored with the Phoenix Award for outstanding contributions to the field of Welty studies.

• AcknowledgmentsEditorial NoteDramatis PersonaeIntroductionChapter 1: 1931–1939Chapter 2: 1940–1949Chapter 3: 1950–1959Chapter 4: 1959–1977NotesBibliographyIndex

"Set in the Depression, in the war years, and on the home front during the battle for civil rights, the letters in this stirring collection not only report what’s happening in Eudora Welty’s and Frank Lyell’s lives but also reveal their admixture of tastes that can amuse the funny bone or stir the intellect. To Absent Friends traces their enduring bond through more than forty years while documenting the evolution of Welty’s career and its path from Jackson, Mississippi, into her international acclaim." - Hunter Cole, author of The Legs Murder Scandal