In her writing and in her conversation, Eudora Welty (1909-2001) had a dazzling and ironic wit. Many friends remember the laughter she provoked through her sense of the absurd. Early Escapades explores the initial manifestations of her comic and creative energy, from the poems of her adolescence to the promising parodies and caricatures she wrote and drew as a young adult.<BR>This compilation includes pen-and-ink drawings as well as caricatures, limericks, poems, essays, editorial pieces, and society notes written by the young Welty. The earliest example of her work here is a reproduction of a small handmade book she wrote and illustrated to entertain her brother Edward. Titled "The Glorious Apology," the book is a collage of parodied newspaper and magazine clippings that tell the rollicking story of one Fitzhugh Green, son of the "whispering saxophonist" Artimus H. Green.