About the Author

John E. Miller is a writer and historian who taught American history for three decades at South Dakota State University. He is the author of several books, including Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet and Looking for History on Highway 14. He resides in Brookings, South Dakota.The Missouri Biography Series, edited by William E. Foley

Reviews

"[Miller] draws on Wilder's unpublished autobiography, existing letters written to her daughter and to her husband on the few occasions she traveled without him, and her fiction and 'newspaper stories, local histories, land records, ' which he mines to create an impressively detailed context for her life. . . . Miller does not try to make her any more--or less--than she was, and that is the virtue of his biography."--Washington Post Book World "John E. Miller's scrupulous new biography of Wilder is a valuable and absorbing book." -Ann Romines, Great Plains Quarterly "Miller's thorough, riveting, work illuminates a complex process of authorship, and the mother and daughter behind it." -Jane St. Anthony, Minneapolis Star-Tribune"...An enjoyable portrait of a fascinating personality and her time." -Jo Ellen Heil, Ventura County Star"Shedding new light on this remarkable woman, Miller demonstrates that Wilder's entire life was a process of becoming the woman we know as the beloved children's author." -Robert H. Ferrell, American Bookseller

"Miller's absorbing new biography . . . puts the author's early years in context before focusing on her adult life as a farmer's wife, mother, journalist and budding author. . . . Miller uncovers facts about Laura's life that were not revealed in her own work, and he places her experience in a broader context. He makes her days on the frontier and the farm come alive with statistics on population and demographics as well as rich details about Indians and wildlife."--In These Times