Showing posts with label Pioneer Girl The Annotated Autobiography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pioneer Girl The Annotated Autobiography. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Edited by Pamela Smith Hill

 


Started reading Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder and edited by Pamela Smith Hill. Not sure how long it will take me to get through it because of my limited reading time. Here is the book's description:

Follow the real Laura Ingalls and her family as they make their way west and discover that truth is as remarkable as fiction.

Hidden away since the 1930s, Laura Ingalls Wilder's never-before-published autobiography reveals the true stories of her pioneering life. Some of her experiences will be familiar; some will be a surprise. Pioneer Girl re-introduces readers to the woman who defined the pioneer experience for millions of people around the world.

Through her recollections, Wilder details the Ingalls family's journey from Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, back to Minnesota, and on to Dakota Territory, sixteen years of travels, unforgettable stories, and the everyday people who became immortal through her fiction. Using additional manuscripts, diaries, and letters, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography builds on Wilder's work by adding valuable context and explores her growth as a writer.

Author of an award-winning Laura Ingalls Wilder biography, editor Pamela Smith Hill offers new insights into Wilder's life and times. In an introduction, Hill illuminates Wilder's writing career and the dynamic relationship between the budding novelist and her daughter and editor, Rose Wilder Lane. Sharing the story of Wilder's original manuscript, Hill discusses the catalysts for Pioneer Girl and the process through which Wilder's story turned from an unpublished memoir into the national phenomenon of the Little House series.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography also explores the history of the frontier that the Ingalls family traversed and the culture and life of the communities Wilder lived in. This groundbreaking volume develops a fuller picture of Wilder's life and times for the millions of readers who wish to learn more about this important American author. It contains one hundred and twenty-five images, eight fully researched maps, and hundreds of annotations based on numerous primary sources, including census data, county, state, and federal records, and newspapers of the period.

An important historic and literary achievement, this annotated edition of Pioneer Girl provides modern readers with new insights into the woman behind the fictional classics Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years.

Have you read it yet? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. 

Friday, May 27, 2016

New Book for Laura Fans Coming in 2017 from State Historical Society

Found on the South Dakota State News site is the following press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 23, 2016
CONTACT:  Jeff Mammenga, Media Coordinator, (605) 773-6000, jeff.mammenga@state.sd.us

New book on Laura Ingalls Wilder coming in 2017 from State Historical Society

PIERRE, S.D.—To celebrate the 150th birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder in 2017, the South Dakota State Historical Society will release a new book on the writer’s legacy.

In 2014, the South Dakota Historical Society Press released Wilder’s “Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography,” edited by Pamela Smith Hill, which became a national bestseller. The new book, “Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder,” edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal, will bring together writers from across the continent to explore the impact that “Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography” made on our understanding of one of America’s most iconic authors.

“Readers want to know more about Wilder and her creative process,” said Koupal. “This book will gather important voices on topics like Wilder’s collaboration with her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, the influence of Wilder’s personal politics in her personal voice and her lasting place in children’s literature. The national response to ‘Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography’ shows how keenly readers want to dig deeper into these topics and others.”

Sales for “Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography” shot past original expectations, and the book is now in its ninth printing with 165,000 copies in print. A contract for Japanese translation rights is underway between the South Dakota Historical Society Press and Taishukan Publishing.

In addition to “Pioneer Girl Perspectives,” two more volumes dedicated to sharing Wilder’s publishing journey are being planned. The first, slated for publication in 2018, will examine the edited typescripts that came after Wilder’s original, handwritten manuscript and will constitute a rigorous study of Rose Wilder Lane as editor. The second volume will utilize manuscript material leading readers directly from Wilder’s “Pioneer Girl” texts to Wilder’s rough draft of “Little House in the Woods.”

Preorders for “Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder” will open in November 2016; the book will be available in the spring of 2017. Wilder was born Feb. 7, 1867, and died on Feb. 10, 1957. More book details will be released by the Pioneer Girl Project on its website pioneergirlproject.org in the coming weeks.

Koupal is director and editor-in-chief of the Pioneer Girl Project and the South Dakota Historical Society Press. Since 1997, the Press has served its readers and authors with award-winning books and gained a national reputation for excellence. Koupal has over 30 years of editorial experience. She is also a board member of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society in De Smet, S.D., and did postgraduate work in American literature at the University of Wisconsin.

“Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography” is available for $39.95 plus shipping and tax through www.sdshspress.com.

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About the South Dakota State Historical Society
The South Dakota State Historical Society is a division of the Department of Education. The State Historical Society, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is headquartered at the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. The center houses the society’s world-class museum, the archives, and the historic preservation, publishing and administrative/development offices. Call (605) 773-3458 or visit www.history.sd.gov for more information. The society also has an archaeology office in Rapid City; call (605) 394-1936 for more information.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

New Books in my Laura Ingalls Wilder Collection

There is a little competition going on in my bookshelf. Civil War fiction and non-fiction titles are vying for more room against my ever growing Laura Ingalls Wilder collection. Here are a few titles I have added lately.



I have skimmed this one, but not really gotten much into it yet. That's on my to-do list.


It is possible you can't be a true Laura fan unless you own this one. 


Just received this one from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society this week.