borrowed names, and late-night bits
To be released March 16, 2010 (and ready to pre-order on amazon): Borrowed Names: Poems About Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C. J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters by Jeannine Atkins (New York: Henry Holt and Co.).

You can read Atkins's blog HERE.

I couldn't sleep last night, so I spent a few hours adding articles and this dissertation to my Laura Ingalls Wider - Rose Wilder Lane bibliography. At some point, I'll have to force myself to do some filing; I seem to have adopted a system that can only be called piling. It reminds me of a story about my great-grandmother, who used to stash the daily newspaper beneath the cushion of her rocking chair after she finished reading it. She dealt with them only when her feet no longer touched the floor, but at least she dealt with them...

From the 1980 Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Winter 1980), I found an interesting bit to ponder. Rosa Anne Moore had proposed three new articles: (1) One about the publication of Little House in the Big Woods; (2) one about Almanzo Wilder and Laura's aunt, Martha Quiner; and (3) "a critical assessment of the rhetoric and art of the "Little House" books, especially comparing them to the now-forgotten work of Rose Lane who was so instrumental in their writing."

Moore was given a grant of $1000 to work on the articles, the money providing travel to California to interview Norma Lee Browning, a trip to San Francisco to examine the manuscripts at the Pomona Public Library, a trip to Pepin to gather information about Martha Quiner Carpenter, a trip to De Smet to gather details about Almanzo, and a trip to Arkansas to interview friends of Rose there. (I assume she meant Ethel and Paul Cooley.) Moore intended to combine the three articles into one book. She published three articles, covering two of her proposals.

Why was the book never published? And an article about Almanzo Wilder and Aunt Martha? Curious!
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:45 AM