From her images of the "great, dark trees of the Big Woods" to the endless grass of the prairies in the west, Laura Ingalls Wilder's depictions of frontier life for America's pioneers in her beloved "Little House" series of children's books have won her countless fans. Now the writer's autobiography, from which she drew the material that has delighted readers for decades, will be published this autumn for the first time, more than 80 years after she first wrote it.
Wilder's Pioneer Girl, the story of her childhood, was begun by the author in 1930, when she was in her early 60s, but was rejected by editors at the time. It contains stories omitted from her novels, tales that Wilder herself felt "would not be appropriate" for children, such as her family's sojourn in the town of Burr Oak, where she once saw a man became so drunk that, when he lit a cigar, the whisky fumes on his breath ignited and killed him instantly. In another recollection, a shopkeeper drags his wife around by her hair, pours kerosene on the floor of his house, and sets their bedroom on fire.
Continue reading...
0 comments:
Post a Comment