6/5/2023 0 Comments These happy golden years![]() ![]() ![]() The real Clarence Brewster, whom fans will remember as a naughty schoolboy in Laura’s first classroom as a teacher, was later convicted of manslaughter. And I’m happy to say is a treasure.Īnd even in cases where Wilder smooths things over, Hill’s generous annotations provide the juicy backstory: Aunt Docia’s divorce, a neighbor’s illegitimate pregnancy, and the tragic fate of Cap Garland, to name just a few. Wilder’s heretofore unpublished memoir has been edited by Pamela Smith Hill, the author of a 2007 Wilder biography, who explores the overlap and the differences between various versions of the manuscript, the later novels, and Wilder’s own life. Now Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography offers Wilder’s complete first draft of her own story, enhanced by scrupulous and wide-ranging new research. Lane helped refine it and sent it to her agent, though he dismissed it: “A fine old lady was sitting in a rocking chair and telling a story chronologically.” Pioneer Girl never did find a home at a publisher, and eventually its stories were put in the third person, fictionalized, and sprinkled throughout Wilder’s Little House series. There’s no indication she thought of the book, written by hand on six large tablets, as a children’s book. But, in fact, in 1930, when she was 63, Wilder finished her first draft of Pioneer Girl, a first-person, nonfictional account of 16 years of her childhood. ![]()
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