Readers of Eudora Welty's stories often encounter a protective and domelike nighttime sky, the moon and constellations beckoning a character to venture beyond the familiar, visible world. This striking metaphor for the human need to seek out the unknown serves as an anchoring image in "Daughter of the Swan," Gail L. Mortimer's study of Welty's lifelong inquiry into the nature and contexts of knowledge.

Mortimer argues that Welty's views on epistemology and the elusiveness of certainty lie at the heart of this writer's subtle and revelatory work. Employing the psychoanalytic...