Eudora Welty's amazing output during the 1940s

The third collection in Eudora Welty's "Collected Stories," from 1949, is apparently a group of linked stories - set in the fictional Morgana, Miss., and with overlapping characters and plot elements, a format somewhat unusual in the '40s but very prevalent today, to the point of being a cliche. I'm struck by a few things from the first two stories: first of all, Welty's astonishing output during a short span - 3/4s of her lifetime of short fiction produced or at least published in the 1940s! - three very strong and distinct volumes, each with several classic stories. Not sure why her productivity slowed in later years, though perhaps she turned toward novels (and her late, excellent memoir, The Optimist's Daughter) - in this third collection she is definitely interested in the network of characters that can make up a novel and in the longer form - the second story, which I'm still reading, June recital, is nearly novella length in itself. Also struck by the recurrence of the Welty themes: women abused, mistreated, or abandoned by their men (Shower of Gold), attachment to and even obsession with the houses of childhood, nursing the ill, voyeurism (June Recital), the link between sex and death of sex and suffering (couple in June Recital sneak into a semi-abandoned house to have sex, next-door neighbor sickly boy spies through telescope, sees someone try to set fire to the house). Third, struck by the re-emergence of Welty's comic narrative voice, something she beautifully established in some of her first stories, notably the famous Why I live at the P.O., but then moved away from as she tried different narrators - literary omniscient third person in particular - but her ease with comic Southern vernacular is a real gift and she uses it well in this third collection, particularly in Shower of Gold, which one of the characters narrates in a direct address form to the reader.