Welty took a lot of photographs in her life, working as a professional for the WPA from 1933 to 1936. She said that cemeteries had a sinister appeal, and they appear frequently in her fiction. Quotations from LOSING BATTLES, THE OPTIMIST`S DAUGHTER, many of her stories, and her essay Some Notes on River Country, accompany this collection, which includes timeworn urns and statuary in country cemeteries in Mississippi, many of them near Jackson, Port Gibson, Crystal Springs, and Vicksburg.