A Sweet, Separate Intimacy
Women Writers of the American Frontier, 1800-1922
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Texas Tech Press,U.S.
Published:30th Nov '07
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
'In this book are bits and pieces of dreams, lives, experiences, and vistas, like squares cut from old cloth and assembled into a crazy quilt of writing styles and forms. The patchwork design mirrors both the complexity of the chroniclers and the stark lines and angles of the American frontier' - Susan Cummins Miller, from the introduction. In this anthology of thirty-four writers who published during the settlement years of the American frontier, Miller assembles nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and occasional writings from women of Anglo, Chinese, Hispanic, and Native American ethnicity. Variously addressing such themes as isolation, drudgery, friendship, mourning, and even mysticism, these writers offer up a different frontier, one that focuses on womens experiences as much as mens. In brief biographical and historical introductions to each writer, Miller shares insights and context as engaging as the selections themselves.
This book deserves a place alongside other compilations of women's experience of the early days out West. --Cindy Bellinger, Enchantment Sept. 2008 ""This useful and accessible collection has great appeal for general readers with an interest in western, nineteenth-century, or women's history. Moreover, college and high school instructors will find it a welcome source and textbook."" --Jennifer L. Jenkins, Journal of Arizona History j ""Not simply paeans to the West, the selections examine substantive social, political, and racial themes and explore issues of identity, marriage, and autonomy."" --J. K. Weinstein, Choice ""The frontier and American women are intertwined in the collected pieces through the issues of race, the clash of indigenous and invading or intermingling cultures. The feminine voice is heard throughout--voices rich in detail and less impaired by territorial imperative."" --David B. Broad, Journal of the West ""... A testament to the adage 'you can't keep a good book down.'"" -- The Journal of Arizona History, Vol. 49, No. 3, Autumn 2008 ""The editor posses a sure grasp of the sorts of topics and themes that are likely to interest contemporary readers with a literary bent...A lot of the frontier women's fiction reprinted in Miller's compendium is fetching and not easy to find... Nor will the reader want to overlook Sharlot Mabridth Halls' (d. 1913) ""The Fruit of the Yucca Tree"" (1905), a thematic amalgam of Bret Harte's early Western scenes and Jack London's droll forebodings. Enchanting stories like these not only indicate the richness of Miller's selections, but offer readers plenty of food for thought about the imaginative life of their frontier authors.""-- Chiron Review, No. 85, Winter 2008
ISBN: 9780896726185
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 751g
462 pages