whine, whine, stephenwhines

So there's going to be a "new" book of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Missouri Ruralist articles edited by the same literary prospector who brought us Little House in the Ozarks, I Remember Laura, Saving Graces, and three volumes of Laura's Ingalls Wilder's Writings to Young Women on various topics - although I never got the impression that the Ruralist articles were TO young womem, did you? Oh yeah, and Fairy Poems and probably a book or two which I can't remember.

I can't believe that the Laura Ingalls Wilder / Rose Wilder Lane Home & Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, hasn't published their own collection of Missouri Ruralist articles. Or better yet, a volume of copies of actual pages from the Ruralist. After all, the surrounding articles and advertisements are just as entertaining as the Wilder bits. They don't sell the Hines culls, but surely they ought to be making money on these for themselves? Keeping it close to home and all that?

The originals at the University of Missouri are crumbling to dust, and apparently they are the only researchable collection of originals out there. I spent a fair bit of time copying what I could, only I couldn't copy all of them because there are more than a fair handful of them blatantly missing from the collection. I'd like to tell whoever took a mat knife neatly to some of the articles - or ripped out actual pages - that you are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut and I hope you die a miserable death.

Why the University of Missouri hasn't microfilmed this collection is beyond me. (I asked, and was told it was a matter of $$$, of course. History be damned.)

Why one of the non-profit LIW sites hasn't jumped on the Missouri Ruralist bandwagon is, again, beyond me.

Why stephenwhines edits the Ruralist articles and changes their titles for "his" books is waaaay beyond me. What do you think the chances are that he did the honorable thing by his new book? Yeah, me neither.

Btw, God bless Barnes & Noble and their Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection. At least they published Laura's words and Laura's titles. If you can't find a yellow hardback, you can download it here: http://www.ebookmall.com/ebooks/laura-ingalls-wilder-a-family-collection-wilder-beardslee-ebooks.htm .
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:58 AM