Photo courtesy of Eudora Welty House, a Museum of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Eudora Welty’s bedroom, in which sat her trusty desk and typewriter; the secretary is described in The Optimist’s Daughter. The window overlooks Pinehurst Street and the Belhaven University campus.
Book lovers are maniacs. We don’t just devour pages, we look up places mentioned in novels we love, and as soon as we’re set free, we go try to find them. We make pilgrimages to touch the desks of our favorite writers, lay flowers at their graves, or simply walk the streets they walked. If you’re that maniac, enjoy these ten literary destinations that will put you in touch with some of the South’s best and most beloved writers.
Jackson, Mississippi
If you love: Eudora Welty. The internationally acclaimed author of novels and short stories about the American South was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her work has won numerous awards, including a 1973 Pulitzer Prize for The Optimist’s Daughter, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Order of the South. Her native Mississippi remembers her every May 2, which is officially Eudora Welty Day.
Jackson connection: Many authors have contributed to the literary lineage of Jackson (including Richard Ford, Richard Wright, and Margaret Walker), but Welty is Jackson. Native-born, she moved with her family to Pinehurst Street around the time of her high school graduation, and it remained her permanent home until her death in 2001.
Sites to visit: Begin at the Eudora Welty House, preserved exactly as it was when she died at age 92 and bequeathed it to the state of Mississippi. The site includes an Education and Visitors Center (well worth the trip) and the Mississippi History Store, for books by and about Welty as well as collectibles. While there, tour her house (where it’s irresistible to linger at the titles of her vast library that lines most of the walls) and garden. The garden, restored to the 1925—45 period when Welty worked at her mother’s side tending it, is now kept up by volunteers who named themselves “The Cereus Weeders” in honor of Welty’s beloved night-blooming cereus. Pay further homage at the Eudora Welty Library, a public library with its Mississippi Writers Room and Collection, a tribute to the state’s literary wealth. Pay culinary tribute at Bill’s Greek Tavern, which Welty called the best restaurant in the world.
Shop at: Lemuria Books is the bursting center of Jackson literary life, with its large collection of Southern writers as well as Civil War titles. It’s also the place to pick up a Welty (or Grisham or Faulkner) signed first edition among its numerous rare treasures, and to collect staff-selected contemporary first editions in a monthly First Editions Club.
Yazoo City, Mississippi
If you love: Willie Morris. Morris, who was born in Jackson, Mississippi, spent his childhood in Yazoo City and immortalized it (and Delta life in general) in award-winning fiction and non-fiction that was known for its lyricism. In 1967 at the age of 33, he became the youngest-ever editor-in-chief of Harper’s Magazine, and helped launch the careers of writers including William Styron and Norman Mailer. He returned to Mississippi in 1980 and continued mentoring young talents, including John Grisham as writer in residence at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Yazoo connection: This small Mississippi town is a fitting resting place for William Weaks “Willie” Morris, who not only made Yazoo City his home, but also captured it for generations of readers in several autobiographical works, the most prominent of which is My Dog Skip, a memoir of his childhood made into a popular film in 2000.
Sites to visit: Morris, who died in 1999, is buried in Yazoo City at Glenwood Cemetery. Note that his uniquely cut headstone is just thirteen paces south of the broken, chain-encircled (and spooky) grave of The Witch of Yazoo City, immortalized in Morris’ memoir, Good Old Boy. The Sam Olden Historical Museum houses a lovely collection of Morris ephemera, including his desk, notes made while writing, and the original headstone of his dog, Skipper. Walk the Henry Herschel Brickell Memorial Yazoo Literary Walkway, which honors more than one hundred Yazooans who have contributed to the literary world and leads to the historic Ricks Memorial Library and its large room dedicated to Morris memorabilia and books.
Shop at: Downtown Marketplace features books by local authors and hosts readings and signings; it’s also the place to go for antiques, pottery, and camouflage gear.
Natchez, Mississippi
If you love: Richard Wright, Greg Iles. Wright is best known for two works that continue to be read and discussed in classrooms throughout the country: Native Son (1940) and Black Boy, which became an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1945. This African-American author is credited with destroying the white mythology of black men as subservient, patient, and humorous. Iles has written twelve New York Times bestselling novels, many of which are set in his hometown of Natchez. This spring his newest, Natchez Burning, brings back Penn Cage from 2008’s The Devil’s Punchbowl, who is now the mayor of Natchez and entering a world of suspenseful trouble.
Natchez connections: The grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper, Wright was born on Rucker Plantation, just a few miles outside of Natchez, and spent his early childhood in his grandparents’ small home in town. Natchez’ other native son, Greg Iles, was born in Stuttgart, Germany, but was raised in Natchez and lives there now with his family.
Sites to visit: Richard Wright fans should begin at his childhood home—a small house in Natchez’s Woodlawn Historic District where the author spent his boyhood (marked but not open to the public). Drive east on Route 84 to Roxie, Mississippi, where Rucker Plantation once stood, and imagine the three-generation trajectory from slave to sharecropper to international author. Back to Natchez for Iles fans, who can delight in scouting myriad locations featured in his popular novels, including the historic Eola Hotel and Dunleith Inn, as well as the Turning Angel monument in Natchez City Cemetery. Local guide Downtown Karla Brown offers a two-hour Greg Iles Book Tour and will even recommend one of the restaurants featured in his books for lunch. Finally, don’t miss Edelweiss, a beautifully restored Swiss chalet-style building in the city’s On-Top-of-the-Hill Historic District, which is the location of Iles’ office today.
Shop at: Turning Pages Books & More inhabits a historic antebellum building in downtown Natchez and features African-American and Civil War titles. Pick up a signed copy of Natchez Burning. They also keep a hot pot of coffee on.
New Orleans, Louisiana
If you love: Sherwood Anderson, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, Richard Ford, John Grisham, Anne Rice, John Kennedy Toole, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams. Many more authors than these luminaries have called New Orleans home in one way or another, but these may be her most famous sons and daughters. Lovers of Southern literature in general, and any of these esteemed authors, will find destinations in the city’s French Quarter and beyond, not to mention a wealth of independent booksellers and literary festivals.
New Orleans connections: Some, such as Truman Capote, were born here.Others, including Tennessee Williams, claimed the city as their spiritual home. And then others, such as Anne Rice, have created a spiritual tourism (vampires before the age of Twilight) in the city. With so many literary ghosts, enjoy the following highlights to whet your appetite.
Sites to visit: Begin with a Sazerac at the Carousel Bar & Lounge at the Hotel Monteleone, joining the legions of literati who’ve eaten, drunk, and slept here: Hemingway, Faulkner, Williams, Welty, Rice, Ford, and Grisham, among others. Tennessee Williams’ favorite hotel, it’s the headquarter hotel for the sprawling literary festival that bears his name.
Second only to the Monteleone, the Pontalba Apartments overlooking Jackson Square may have hosted more writers than any other New Orleans site. It was here that Sherwood Anderson ran a dazzling salon in the 1920s and played host to Somerset Maugham, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Carl Sandburg, and Faulkner, whom Anderson mentored. For an inside look, the Louisiana State Museum’s 1850 House in the Lower Pontalba Buildings is a splendid glimpse. From there, check out the four French Quarter homes of Tennessee Williams, the writer perhaps most closely associated with the city. It’s said that from his home on St. Peter, Williams heard the rattling of a streetcar named… yes, Desire.
Finally, for a few contemporary homages, check out Anne Rice’s former home on First Street in Uptown, and snap a selfie with the Canal Street statue of the city’s most robust and memorable fictional character, Ignatius J. Reilly. He’s the anti-hero of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, set famously in New Orleans (and featuring a fictionalized version of Lucky Dogs, which you can sample from numerous carts around the Quarter). Toole, who was born in New Orleans, committed suicide before his book saw publication; but thanks to the efforts of his mother and the championing of Walker Percy, Confederacy has delighted millions. Fans can pay further homage at his grave in Greenwood Cemetery.
Shop at: Faulkner House Books is both sanctuary and shrine, combining literary pilgrimage with top-shelf book shopping. The Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author lived, wrote, and entertained in the 1840 townhouse located on a narrow French Quarter alleyway in the 1920s. The current owners restored the building fifteen years ago and opened the bookstore on the ground floor. Whether you’re after a paperback copy of The Sound and the Fury, a rare book or first edition, or just a newly released local author, you can’t possibly leave empty-handed. Finally, for a cultural mash-up that’s irresistible, check out I.J. Reilly’s, a knick-knack and curiosity shop located at the same address where Stanley and Stella Kowalski lived in A Streetcar Named Desire.
New Iberia, Louisiana
If you love: James Lee Burke. This prolific, best-selling mystery writer is widely known for more than twenty Dave Robicheaux novels (two of which have been made into films) and has received multiple Edgar Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
New Iberia connection: Burke, born in Texas, spent childhood summers playing and fishing on the bayous and lakes surrounding New Iberia; and the town never left him. While the author now divides his time between a home in New Iberia and one in Missoula, Montana, the bayou town is the full-time home to his protagonist, Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux.
Sites to visit: To walk in Robicheaux’s shoes, download self-guided walking and driving tours of “Dave’s Domain” from iberiatravel.com. Check out the Iberia Parish Courthouse (the location of Robicheaux’s office), stroll the Bridge Street bridge over Bayou Teche to picture the detective’s legendary bait shop, and plan lunch at Victor’s Cafeteria, one of Robicheaux’s favorite spots to eat.
Shop at: Books along the Teche is ground-zero for Burke fans, offering signed copies of all his books and numerous signed first editions, DVDs of the film version of In The Electric Mist, along with other regional authors and rare books. There’s also a superb collection of books on Cajun history.
Vacherie, Louisiana
If you love: Alcée Fortier. The name Alcée Fortier may not spring immediately to mind, but the name Br’er Rabbit should. Fortier, who had collected West African folk tales from former slaves during his youth, later shared them with his friend, Georgia-based writer Joel Chandler Harris. Harris adapted these tales into the Uncle Remus stories, launching Briar Patch and its denizens into celebrity.
Vacherie connection: Vacherie is the location of Laura Plantation, where Fortier, himself the grandson of one of the richest sugar plantation owners in Louisiana, visited as a teenager. There, he began collecting children’s stories, French oral narratives told by former slaves about a rabbit called Compair Lapin (Clever Rabbit).
Sites to visit: Like the tales, the original Laura Plantation stands remarkably intact today and is a beautiful and rare example of a working Creole plantation with a newly restored Big House, family memorabilia, and six intact slave quarters. A guided tour inside one of the 1840s-era slave cabins will take you right where Fortier first heard Br’er Rabbit folklore.
Shop at: Laura’s Plantation Store features replicas of the original English version of Compair Lapin, as well as Joel Chandler Harris’ The Classic Tales of Br’er Rabbit. Check out the West African children’s version on sale here as well: La Belle Histoire de Leuk-le-Lièvre.
Alexandria, Louisiana
If you love: Arna Bontemps. Arnaud “Arna” Wendell Bontemps was an African-American novelist, poet, and leader of the Harlem Renaissance. As head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, Bontemps curated new and important collections of African-American literature and culture, including the Langston Hughes Renaissance Collection, honoring his lifetime friend.
Alexandria connection: Bontemps was born in Alexandria, and the town proudly claims him as a native son. When he was three, however, his family moved to Los Angeles as part of the historic Great Migration of blacks out of the South. Nonetheless, the author always considered himself Southern and referred to his childhood home in Alexandria as “back home.”
Sites to visit: Bontemps’ birthplace on Third Street is the home of the Arna Bontemps African American Museum, which features his works, historical photos, and artifacts (His widow chose this location to honor the memory of her husband.) The collection is also a great introduction to the broader arts, culture, music, history, and words of Central Louisiana.
Shop at: Ready to discover a treasure? Check out Book Inn, a packed-to-the-rafters used book store, where the organization is limited to specialties by room (although the friendly owner can put her finger on anything you’re seeking).
Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana
If you love: Ernest Gaines. This African-American author’s works are widely taught in college classrooms nationwide; his 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick in 1997. His novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman became a celebrated television movie. Gaines, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, has received numerous honors, including the National Humanities Medal and induction into the French Ordre des Lettres as a Chevalier.
Pointe Coupee Parish connection: Born on a plantation in Oscar, Louisiana, to a fifth-generation sharecropping family, Gaines grew up in former slave quarters and had his first schooling in the plantation church. Spending much of his adult life teaching in Lafayette at the University of Louisiana (as well as in France), Gaines returned to Pointe Coupee Parish and built a home on the land of the former plantation of his youth, moving the church he grew up with onto his property.
Sites to visit: Although Gaines fictionalized his environs into the worlds of Bayonne and St. Raphael Parish in his fiction, exploring the small towns and back roads here will feel utterly familiar to fans of all of his works. For sites from Gaines’ youth, begin by visiting the Ernest Gaines Oak Tree, which the author says he passed by when walking to the grocery store, and under which he was inspired to write The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Pass by the site of Riverlake Plantation, where Gaines was born, and Mount Zion Baptist Church (the original plantation church). Nearby, the Gaineses have lovingly restored Mount Zion River Lake Cemetery and say that they intend to be buried there.
Shop at: The Pointe Coupee Parish Library not only lends books, but sells volumes as well, including works by Gaines. It also plays host to his wife Dianne’s monthly book club. Drop by the Pointe Coupee Parish Office of Tourism to browse several wonderful books about the parish, including New Roads and Old Rivers by Randy Harelson with local historian (and author) Brian Costello.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
If you love: Robert Penn Warren. The poet, novelist, and critic is dually remembered for co-founding the renowned literary journal, The Southern Review, and writing All the King’s Men, his Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel (featured in two film versions, in 1949 and again in 2006). Fewer readers may know that Warren also won the Pulitzer for Poetry, making him the only writer ever to do so in both categories.
Baton Rouge connection: While teaching at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Warren took careful note of the governorship of Huey P. Long. The resulting book All the King’s Men, is a fictionalized account deeply connected to the capital city.
Sites to visit: Louisiana’s capitol was Warren’s home away from home for endless hours, as he researched and plotted his tale of Willie Stark and Sugar Boy. Tour the Capitol with his pages in hand, and look for General Moffat’s statue, mentioned specifically in the novel. As you walk the hallways where Long was assassinated, imagine Warren there during the same period, in 1935 (Long is buried on the Capitol grounds.) The Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center is the perfect place to overnight, as this historic hotel has hosted Long and Warren (not to mention Will Rogers, Fidel Castro, and JFK). The Robert Penn Warren Room in the LSU English Department has a fine display of photographs and other material; although it’s not generally open to the public, devotees can contact the department for a visit. Finally, the annual Louisiana Book Festival is a perfect time to celebrate all things literary in Baton Rouge.
Shop at: A Baton Rouge landmark, Cottonwood Books offers more than forty thousand titles—new, used, and rare—and specializes in Southern lit, the Civil War, and Louisiana history.
Covington, Louisiana
If you love: Walker Percy. This deeply intellectual writer contributed a body of fiction and non-fiction that combines vibrant prose with philosophical questioning. His first novel, The Moviegoer, won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction, and was made into a film. He was also a longtime and beloved mentor of young writers at Loyola University of New Orleans, where an annual conference brings a lively mix of scholars and devotees from far and wide. This month, the first ever weekend symposium, The Walker Percy Weekend is taking place in St. Francisville—the West Feliciana town that contributed much to the semi-fictitious Feliciana of Percy’s novels. The symposium will explore the major themes in Percy’s work through a series of lively panel discussions, tours to sites familiar to readers of his fiction, craft bourbon tastings, and culinary events.
Covington connection: Although from a prominent Mississippi family, Percy lived much of his life in this Northshore town. Percy wrote, among other books, Lancelot, The Second Coming, Love in the Ruins, The Thanatos Syndrome, The Last Gentleman, and The Moviegoer while living here. The brilliant author is also buried in Covington.
Sites to visit: When not using the office in his gracious home on Bogue Falaya River, Percy rented numerous spots in Covington. Follow his trail from the old St. Tammany Art Association building, to a New Orleans-style slave quarter off Theard Street, to the site of Kumquat, his daughter’s former bookshop, where Percy had an office upstairs(now a shop called The French Mix). Percy frequently visited St. Joseph Abbey, and it’s now his final resting place. His grave is marked by a plain stone—a fitting tribute to a humble man. Fundraising is underway by the St. Tammany Library Foundation for a memorial statue of Percy, seated on a bench with his beloved dog, Sweet Thing, at a new library in nearby Madisonville.
Shop at: Let’s face it: the best bookstore in the world for Walker Percy lovers is forty-one miles away…in New Orleans. Maple Street Books has an in-house shrine to the author, ample titles, and a long history with him. Make a second pilgrimage.
Details. Details. Details.
Jackson
Eudora Welty House
1119 Pinehurst Street,
(601) 353-7762
mdah.state.ms.us/welty
Eudora Welty Library
300 North State Street
(601) 968-5811
jhlibrary.com/mainlib/ew_main.htm
Bill’s Greek Tavern
4760 McWillie Drive
(601) 982-9295
southernfoodways.org/iconic-jackson-restaurants-bills-greek-tavern
Mayflower Café
123 West Capitol Street
(601) 355-4122
http://www.mayflowercafems.com
Lemuria Books
202 Banner Hall
4655 I-55 North
(601) 366-7619
lemuriabooks.com
Yazoo City
Glenwood Cemetery
Corner of Grady and Mike Espy streets
visityazoo.org/glenwood-cemetery/
Sam Olden Historical Museum
Triangle Cultural Center
332 North Main Street
(800) 381-0662
visityazoo.org/sam-olden-historical-museum/
Henry Herschel Brickell Memorial Yazoo Literary Walkway
visityazoo.org/henry-herschel-brickell-memorial-yazoo-literary-walkway/
Ricks Memorial Library
310 North Main Street
(662) 746-5557
visityazoo.org/ricks-memorial-library/
Downtown Marketplace
231 South Main Street
(662) 746-5031
facebook.com/downtown.marketplace
Natchez
Richard Wright Childhood Home
20 East Woodlawn Street
Eola Hotel
110 Pearl Street
(601) 445-6000
natchezeola.com/
Dunleith Inn
84 Homochitto Street
(800) 433-2445
dunleith.com/
Natchez City Cemetery
2 Cemetery Road
(601) 445-5051
http://www.natchezcitycemetery.com/
Downtown Karla Brown’s Greg Iles Book Tours
(907) 540-0001
downtownkb@ymail.com
Edelweiss
209 South Broadway
Turning Pages Books & More
520 Franklin Street
(601) 442-2299
turningpagesbooks.com/
New Orleans
Hotel Monteleone
214 Royal St.
(866) 338-4684
hotelmonteleone.com/
Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival
tennesseewilliams.net/
Pontalba Apartments
Jackson Square
1850 House
523 S. Ann Street
(504) 568-6968
crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-museum/museum-sites/1850-house/index
Tennessee Williams Homes
722 Toulouse Street
429 Royal Street
632 Saint Peter Street
1014 Dumaine Street
Anne Rice’s home
1239 First Street
annerice.com/NewOrleans-1239First.html
Ignatius J. Reilly statue
Canal Street, between Dauphine and Bourbon streets
Greenwood Cemetery
5200 Canal Boulevard
(504) 482-0234
greenwoodnola.com
Faulkner House Books
624 Pirates Alley
(504) 524-2940
faulknerhouse.net/
I.J. Reilly’s
632 Elysian Fields
(504) 565-8497
ijreillys.squarespace.com/
Maple Street Book Shop
7523 Maple Street
New Orleans, La.
(504) 866-4916
http://www.maplestreetbookshop.com/pages/view/276/296/
New Iberia
Iberia Travel Visitor Guide
iberiatravel.com/visitor-guide-0
Iberia Parish Courthouse
300 South Iberia Street
Victor’s Cafeteria
109 Main Street
(337) 369-9924
facebook.com/pages/Victors-Cafeteria/129821113709785
Books Along The Teche
106 East Main Street
(337) 367-7621
booksalongtheteche.com/
Vacherie
Laura Plantation
2247 Highway 18
Vacherie, La.
(888) 799-7690
lauraplantation.com/
Alexandria
Arna Bontemps African American Museum and Cultural Center
1327 Third Street
(318) 473-4692
http://www.astorylikenoother.com/explore/sites/18.php
Book Inn
2215 Worley Drive
(318) 445-3305
Pointe Coupee Parish
Ernest Gaines Oak Tree
J.A. Breuche property (public access allowed)
11850 LA Highway 416
Lakeland, La.
Riverlake
623 False River Road
Oscar, La.
Mount Zion Baptist Church/Mount Zion River Lake Cemetery
6435 False River Road
Oscar, La.
Pointe Coupee Parish Library
201 Claiborne Street
New Roads, La.
(225) 638-9847
pointe-coupee.lib.la.us
Ernest J. Gaines Center
Dupré Library
University of Louisiana Lafayette
400 East St. Mary Rd.
(337) 482-1848
ernestgaines.louisiana.edu/
Pointe Coupee Parish Office of Tourism
727 Hospital Road
New Roads, La.
(225) 638-3998
pctourism.org/
Baton Rouge
Louisiana State Capitol Building and Gardens
North Third Street on State Capitol Drive
(225) 342-7317
cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/louisiana/cap.htm
Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center
201 Lafayette Street
(225) 344-5866
www.3hilton.com
Robert Penn Warren Room
LSU Dept. of English
260 Allen Hall
(225) 578-4086
http://english.lsu.edu/
Thomas Boyd Hall, LSU
Louisiana Book Festival
(225) 219-9503
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/
Cottonwood Books
3054 Perkins Road
(225) 343-1266
http://www.cottonwoodbooksbatonrouge.com/
Covington
St. Tammany Art Association building
129 South New Hampshire Street
427 Theard Street
The French Mix (formerly Kumquat Bookstore)
228 Lee Lane
(985) 809-3152
St. Joseph Abbey/Cemetery,
75376 River Road
(985) 892-1800
saintjosephabbey.com/
St. Tammany Library Foundation
sttammanylibraryfoundation.org
