Letters of Mari Sandoz

by Mari Sandoz, Helen Winter Stauffer (Editor)

Mari Sandoz came out of the Sandhills of Nebraska to write at least three enduring Old Jules , Cheyenne Autumn , and Crazy Horse, the Strange Man of the Oglalas . She was a tireless researcher, a true storyteller, an artist passionately dedicated to a place little known and a people largely misunderstood. Blasted by some critics, revered by others for her vivid detail and depth of feeling, Sandoz has achieved a secure place in American literature. Her letters, edited by Helen Winter Stauffer, reveal extraordinary courage and zest for life. Included here are letters written by Sandoz over nearly forty years—from 1928, the year of her father's death and a critical one for her creative development, to 1966, the year of her own death. They allow memorable glimpses of the professional and private her struggles to learn her craft in spite of an unsupportive family and hard-won formal education, her experiences in gathering material, her relationships with editors and publishers, her work with fledgling writers, and her commitment to art and to various social concerns.

493 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1992

About the author

Mari Susette Sandoz (May 11, 1896 – March 10, 1966) was a novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher. She was one of Nebraska's foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians.

Reviews

[Thomas Isern · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thick compilation of correspondence studded with gemstones, many of them jagged. Sandoz was defensive about her homeland (the sandhills of Nebraska, and more generally, the West) and about her literary art. Her exchanges with eastern editors are entertaining when they are not appalling. She was capable, too, of some considerable insights--see, for instance, her delineation of "two strikingly different pioneer Nebraskas," hers and that of Cather, on pp. 87-88, closing with a self-effacing sentence that clothes a simmering resentment. Too, the record here causes me to wish Sandoz and Benny De Voto had exchanged a hundred letters instead of only a handful.