Eudora Welty and William Faulkner, 1962, New York

Grip-n-grin shot of Welty presenting a gold medal to Faulkner at the 1962 annual meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. It was the last trip Faulkner took outside Mississippi.

Eudora Welty presented William Faulkner with the Gold Medal for Fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters on on May 24, 1962 in New York.

"Mr. Faulkner, I think this medal, being pure of its kind, the real gold, would go to you of its own accord," Welty said, "and know its owner regardless of whether we were all here to see or not. Safe as a puppy it would climb into your pocket . . ."

Welty is fond of telling the story that the medal was indeed already in Faulkner's pocket as she spoke. She had passed it to him during dinner and presented an empty box.

It was the last trip Faulkner took outside of Mississippi. He died six weeks later and is buried across the street from my old apartment in Oxford.

No, I didn't take this. An art gallery I used to work for sold prints. This image is purposely low-res to head off any temptation for copyright violations.

Photo credit: Sidney J. Waintrob
Budd Studios, New York