Selected Letters of Hamlin Garland

Book excerpt: Hamlin Garland, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of more than forty books, was a central figure in American literary life for half a century. He was intimately involved with many of the major literary, social, and artistic movements in American culture, and his extensive correspondence with the intellectual leaders of American culture was almost unparalleled in scope. This volume brings together a rich, representative sample of Garland?s letters. They are addressed to an impressive roster of individuals: Samuel Clemens, William Dean Howells, Walt Whitman, Zona Gale, Theodore Roosevelt, Van Wyck Brooks, Howard Mumford Jones, Brander Matthews, Stephen Crane, George Washington Cable, and many others. The letters touch on an equally broad range of subjects, from the U.S. government?s reprehensible treatment of Native Americans to environmental issues to the major literary figures and controversies of Garland?s day. Frank, opinionated, and wide-ranging, Garland?s letters provide a valuable and entertaining portrait of American cultural and intellectual life in the years between 1890 and 1940.