Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains

by Helen Winter Stauffer

Book Overview

As a historian and as a novelist Mari Sandoz (1896-1966) stands in the front rank of western writers: in the words of John K. Hutchens, "no one in our time wrote better than the late Mari Sandoz did, or with more authority and grace, about as many aspects of the old West." This first full-length biography is particularly concerned to show the relationship between Sandoz's life and experiences and her writing.

Drawing heavily on materials in the Mari Sandoz Collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln--correspondence to and from Sandoz, her research notes, and manuscripts--and on interviews with dozens of Sandoz's friends and acquaintances, the author not only establishes the facts of Sandoz's life but confirms her standing as a writer and historian.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803291345
• ISBN13: 9780803291348
• Release Date: August 1982
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 322 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

everything a biography should be

"Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains" is exceptional in several respects. Unlike many biographers, Stauffer maintains detachment from her subject, providing an informed, unbiased view throughout. Stauffer's meticulous research encompasses not only the life and times of Mari Sandoz, but many of the literary and historical battles Sandoz fought with publishers, the movie industry and contemporary authors. By retracing many of the exhaustive Sandoz research efforts Stauffer not only affirms some of Mari's disputed conclusions. but illustrates the obsessive dedication Sandoz brought to her work. Nearly thirty years after publication, Stauffer's biography remains a matchless classic.