Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Prologue: March 14, 1940

1. Return of the Private, 1860-68

2. Boy Life on the Prairie, 1868-81

3. Dakota Homesteader, 1881-84

4. Boston Mentors, 1884-85

5. The Earnest Apprentice, 1886-87

6. Single-Tax Realist, 1888

7. Life under the Wheel, 1888-89

8. Main-Travelled Roads, 1889-91

9. Table Rapper, 1890-92

10. The Campaign for Realism, 1893

11. The Iconoclast, 1893-94

12. Western Horizons, 1895

13. "Ho, for the Klondike!" 1896-98

14. The End of the Trail, 1899-1902

15. Adrift, 1903-7

16. "A Born Promoter," 1907-14

17. A Son of the Middle Border, 1914-17

18. Out of Step with the Moderns, 1918-30

19. The Historian, 1919-29

20. Fortunate Exile, 1929-40

Notes

Promotional Information

An exploration of Garland's contributions to American literary culture and his place within the artistic context of its time

About the Author

Keith Newlin is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and coeditor of the journal Studies in American Naturalism.  He is the coeditor of Selected Letters of Hamlin Garland (Nebraska 1998) and the editor of the forthcoming book by Isabel Garland Lord, A Summer to Be, A Memoir by the Daughter of Hamlin Garland.

Reviews

"As a biography of Garland it is unsurpassed, and it is also an invaluable work of scholarship in enriching our knowledge of American literary history from William Dean Howells to Garland and Stephen Crane, and from Garland to Eugene O'Neill and Sinclair Lewis."—Roger W. Smith, Studies in American Naturalism

"In highly readable, refreshingly clear prose, Newlin takes the reader through each phase of Garland's life and career. . . . This biography of Garland will undoubtedly stand as the most definitive one for years to come."—C. Johanningsmeier, CHOICE

"Garland's story is expertly and thoroughly examined. . . . Hamlin Garland: A Life deserves a place in the library of every person interested in the depictions of rural life or the early history of Dakota Territory."—Jon Lauck, South Dakota History Quarterly

"Hamlin Garland: A Life is an impressive achievement and an invaluable resource to literary scholars and researchers."—Jeffy Swenson, Resources for American Literary Study

"Thanks to Keith Newlin's exhaustive and eloquently written biography, we now have access to the entirety of Hamlin Garland's quirky, historically revealing life. . . . [Hamlin Garland: A Life] is a biography that will serve as a resource to Garland scholars and as a detailed portrait of artistic networks spanning the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century."—Philip Joseph, Western American Literature

"To relate these crucial episodes and make sense of a man whose writings and life defy easy classification, Newlin has (like his subject) travelled indefatigably across the land. And while Garland struck out in his search for gold in the Klondike and for mystical buried crosses in southern California, Newlin has, to the vast benefit of American studies, struck pay dirt."—Quentin Martin, American Literary Realism