The daughter of an international financier, Mona Martinsen was a tall, striking, visionary sculptor studying in Paris with the renowned Auguste Rodin. The son of an American pioneer family on the Great Plains, John G. Neihardt was a short, brilliant, but impoverished poet and writer. It seemed like a colossal mismatch, yet both were irresistibly drawn to the same things. In the beginning as in the end, it was a passion for beauty and a celebration of the marvelous that bound Mona and John. While studying sculpture and exhibiting in Paris, Mona Martinsen was captivated by a little book of poems, A Bundle of Myrrh, a gift from her mother. Mona wrote to the young poet, he replied, and through a series of letters the poet in Bancroft, Nebraska, and the sculptor in Paris, France, discovered much in common. Drawing on correspondence, interviews, archival research, and her own memories, Hilda Martinsen Neihardt tells the story of how the sculptor and the poet met, fell in love, raised a family, and grew old together. Warm and revealing, this timeless love story will delight the admirers of John G. Neihardt and illuminate the life and work of the artist Mona Martinsen.

The story and teachings of Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950), first recorded by John G. Neihardt in Black Elk Speaks, have played a critical role in shaping the way in which Native Americans and others view the past, present, and future of Native America. These conversations with the descendents of Black Elk offer an intimate look at life on the Pine Ridge Reservation and fresh perspectives on the religious, economic, and political opportunities and challenges facing the Lakota people today. In addition to revealing more about Black Elk the healer, the family also provides glimpses of Black Elk as a family man, teacher, and influential ancestor.

Internationally known for Black Elk Speaks and A Cycle of the West, John G. Neihardt (1881–1973) wrote in almost all major genres: fiction, lyric and epic poetry, biography, autobiography, travelogue, literary criticism, and the familiar essay. The Giving Earth includes nearly forty selections representing every phase of Neihardt's art, from the passionate poetry of his youth to the masterworks of his maturity to the lapidary reflections of his old age. In her introduction, Hilda Neihardt, who was with her father when he interviewed Black Elk at Pine Ridge, provides many personal details surrounding the publication of his works. She also introduces each section. Included among the early lyrics are "Let Me Live Out My Years." The short stories that brought him his first fame are represented by "Dreams Are Wiser Than Men" and the memorably horrific "Alien." An excerpt from The River and I documents a trip down the Missouri as atmospheric and eventful as any described by Mark Twain. A Cycle of the West, the five-volume masterwork written over nearly thirty years, receives its due with chapters from The Song of Three Friends, The Song of Hugh Glass, The Song of Jed Smith, The Song of the Indian Wars, and The Song of the Messiah. The extent of Neihardt's achievement is apparent long before the reader comes to the selections from the classic Black Elk Speaks and the fine, late novel When the Trees Flowered. Concluding the anthology are selections from the literary criticism that helped form his philosophy of literature and the autobiographical writing of his twilight years. The Giving Earth is the gift of a writer's generous spirit and unlimited imagination.

Death-defying and vulnerable fur-traders and Indians, demi-devils and almost-angels, and other complex personalities come fully to life in The Ancient Memory, which completes the collecting of John G. Neihardt's early short fiction begun with The End of the Dream and Other Stories. Originally published in popular magazines between 1905 and 1908, these stories about the American frontier illustrated Neihardt's artistry in the short form and foreshadow the themes, situations, and characterizations of his later, better-known work. Although two of the Indian stories, the ironic "Feather for Feather" and the satirical "A Political Coup at Little Omaha," were collected in The Lonesome Trail in 1907, none has been reprinted since early in the twentieth century.Other stories included here are "Like a Woman," featuring the plucky Pelagie, and "The Face in the Balcony," which is dedicated to "those who have gone through life misunderstood." "The Epic-Minded Scot," about a stranger who is stubbornly idealistic and scrupulous, is considered one of Neihardt's best tales. "The Brutal Fact" revolves around a William Tell type of contest between trapping partners that anticipates Neihardt's Song of Three Friends. "The Lure of Woman," a study of greed and revenge, was expanded into his novel Life's Lure. The ineffable "Ancient Memory" carries profound philosophical implications while presenting a strange doppelgänger of sorts. Finally, the memorable Waters—an alcoholic, one-legged, one-eyed frontier printer—is introduced in "The Discarded Fetish," which, with minor changes, became the first half of the novel The Dawn-Builder.In her foreword Neihardt's daughter Hilda Neihardt recalls intimate details incidental to the writing of these stories.

The daughter of an international financier, Mona Martinsen was a tall, striking, visionary sculptor studying in Paris with the renowned Auguste Rodin. The son of an American pioneer family on the Great Plains, John G. Neihardt was a short, brilliant, but impoverished poet and writer. It seemed like a colossal mismatch, yet both were irresistibly drawn to the same things. In the beginning as in the end, it was a passion for beauty and a celebration of the marvelous that bound Mona and John. While studying sculpture and exhibiting in Paris, Mona Martinsen was captivated by a little book of poems, A Bundle of Myrrh, a gift from her mother. Mona wrote to the young poet, he replied, and through a series of letters the poet in Bancroft, Nebraska, and the sculptor in Paris, France, discovered much in common. Drawing on correspondence, interviews, archival research, and her own memories, Hilda Martinsen Neihardt tells the story of how the sculptor and the poet met, fell in love, raised a family, and grew old together. Warm and revealing, this timeless love story will delight the admirers of John G. Neihardt and illuminate the life and work of the artist Mona Martinsen.

The story and teachings of Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950), first recorded by John G. Neihardt in Black Elk Speaks, have played a critical role in shaping the way in which Native Americans and others view the past, present, and future of Native America. These conversations with the descendents of Black Elk offer an intimate look at life on the Pine Ridge Reservation and fresh perspectives on the religious, economic, and political opportunities and challenges facing the Lakota people today. In addition to revealing more about Black Elk the healer, the family also provides glimpses of Black Elk as a family man, teacher, and influential ancestor.

Internationally known for Black Elk Speaks and A Cycle of the West, John G. Neihardt (1881–1973) wrote in almost all major genres: fiction, lyric and epic poetry, biography, autobiography, travelogue, literary criticism, and the familiar essay. The Giving Earth includes nearly forty selections representing every phase of Neihardt's art, from the passionate poetry of his youth to the masterworks of his maturity to the lapidary reflections of his old age. In her introduction, Hilda Neihardt, who was with her father when he interviewed Black Elk at Pine Ridge, provides many personal details surrounding the publication of his works. She also introduces each section. Included among the early lyrics are "Let Me Live Out My Years." The short stories that brought him his first fame are represented by "Dreams Are Wiser Than Men" and the memorably horrific "Alien." An excerpt from The River and I documents a trip down the Missouri as atmospheric and eventful as any described by Mark Twain. A Cycle of the West, the five-volume masterwork written over nearly thirty years, receives its due with chapters from The Song of Three Friends, The Song of Hugh Glass, The Song of Jed Smith, The Song of the Indian Wars, and The Song of the Messiah. The extent of Neihardt's achievement is apparent long before the reader comes to the selections from the classic Black Elk Speaks and the fine, late novel When the Trees Flowered. Concluding the anthology are selections from the literary criticism that helped form his philosophy of literature and the autobiographical writing of his twilight years. The Giving Earth is the gift of a writer's generous spirit and unlimited imagination.

Death-defying and vulnerable fur-traders and Indians, demi-devils and almost-angels, and other complex personalities come fully to life in The Ancient Memory, which completes the collecting of John G. Neihardt's early short fiction begun with The End of the Dream and Other Stories. Originally published in popular magazines between 1905 and 1908, these stories about the American frontier illustrated Neihardt's artistry in the short form and foreshadow the themes, situations, and characterizations of his later, better-known work. Although two of the Indian stories, the ironic "Feather for Feather" and the satirical "A Political Coup at Little Omaha," were collected in The Lonesome Trail in 1907, none has been reprinted since early in the twentieth century.Other stories included here are "Like a Woman," featuring the plucky Pelagie, and "The Face in the Balcony," which is dedicated to "those who have gone through life misunderstood." "The Epic-Minded Scot," about a stranger who is stubbornly idealistic and scrupulous, is considered one of Neihardt's best tales. "The Brutal Fact" revolves around a William Tell type of contest between trapping partners that anticipates Neihardt's Song of Three Friends. "The Lure of Woman," a study of greed and revenge, was expanded into his novel Life's Lure. The ineffable "Ancient Memory" carries profound philosophical implications while presenting a strange doppelgänger of sorts. Finally, the memorable Waters—an alcoholic, one-legged, one-eyed frontier printer—is introduced in "The Discarded Fetish," which, with minor changes, became the first half of the novel The Dawn-Builder.In her foreword Neihardt's daughter Hilda Neihardt recalls intimate details incidental to the writing of these stories.