Library acquires Welty collection with Ludwig fund

The Princeton University Library has acquired a collection of the works of Eudora Welty through the Richard Ludwig Endowment.

Welty received an honorary doctorate from Princeton in 1988 and served as the first Belknap Visitor in the Humanities in April 1985. The collection of her works includes more than 180 items ranging from first editions of her novels and short stories to items such as drawings for her high school yearbook.

The Welty collection joins the library's strong holdings of writers from the South, a program of collecting first begun by the library together with the Department of English in the 1930s. Over the years, the program has added collections of the manuscripts and books by Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner.

The Ludwig endowment was set up in 2001 by Michael Spence, a 1966 Princeton graduate and a winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economic sciences, and his wife, Monica. It honors Spence's mentor at Princeton, the late Richard M. Ludwig, professor of English emeritus and former chair of the Program in American Studies, who died April 28.

For more information on the Welty collection, contact the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections , (609) 258-3184.

Contact: Lauren Robinson-Brown (609) 258-3601