Prairie State Books – serie

A Prairie State BookThese stories, chosen from ten separately published collections of James T. Farrell's short fiction, offer remarkable insights into the lives ofIrish Americans and other Chicagoans from 1910 to 1940. They are gems of the short fiction genre, unique, pioneering, and accomplished.  Farrell's stories offer a wonderful diversity of characters and experiences, from self-deluded, impoverished victims to portraits of the artist as  a young Irish-American living on Chicago's South Side. Charles Fanning's introduction presents Farrell as one of the best Illinois writers of the first half of the century and his stories as among the best in realistic short fiction anywhere.

Combining descriptive travel writing, autobiography, and the depth of the extended essay, Life in Prairie Land--back in print in this new edition--is a classic account of everyday life in early Illinois. Eliza Farnham, a New Yorker who would become one of the leading feminists of her time, describes the nearly five years she spent living in the prairie land of Tazewell County.  Life in Prairie Land is a complex portrait of the midwestern wilderness during the 1830s--beautiful and ugly, beneficent and threatening. Farnham's vivid recreation of her experiences on the Illinois frontier offers a realistic depiction of the harsh pioneer lifestyle as well as a romantic view of an Edenic landscape.  Life in Prairie Land includes descriptions of Farnham's encounters with early settlers and Native Americans, her eye-opening experiences with birth and death, the flora and fauna that surrounded her, and the developing towns she passed through in her travels. Farnham's years on the Illinois frontier showed her the possibilities of a less restrictive society and planted the seeds that would later grow into firmly held and eloquently expressed views on women's equality.

First published in 1937 in honor ofthe Galesburg and Knox College Centenary, the book contains a wealth oflively details and amusing anecdotes. Calkins traces the progress of thecommunity and the college through the arrival of the railroad, slave running,abolitionist confrontations, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Civil War,and the postwar era.

Debora Greger is a stoic comedian in an age when even wit has its darkundertones. In this her fourth collection she finds Ovid in Provincetown,a right whale in Iowa, and Cleopatra in the afterworld. Nothing residesin its proper place, except the place of exile. "Characteristic wit,irony, and precision." —Publishers Weekly

A bedrock text of American progressivism, Twenty Years at Hull-House tells the dramatic story of how social reformer Jane Addams cofounded and developed the Chicago settlement house into a community center dedicated to serving the city's immigrants and poor. Addams provides an eyewitness account of urban life in her lifetime while explaining the ideas and experiences that motivated her to dedicate her life to helping these Chicagoans. By arguing that Americans should respect immigrants' traditions, Addams created a successful template for integrating newcomers into society and empowering them to seek out what they needed from government, business, and other institutions. Addams' philosophy and tireless pursuit of social justice influenced people and movements around the world. One of the best-known public figures of her time, Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize and a century later remains an inspirational figure in American history.

A Prairie State BookSupported by Nettie Lou SamuelsA surefire cure for the headaches and stomach upsets of the twenty-first century, The Lemon Jelly Cake carries readers back to kinder, gentler times in a small town at the turn of the last century. Evoking a forgotten America of lush lawns, bountiful summer picnics, and shady front porches, the tale is set when the day's toughest decision might have been what to serve for dinner or which suit or dress to wear.  In this edition, an introduction by longtime Millikin University faculty member and Findlay resident Dan Guillory situates the book and its charming tale firmly in the Central Illinois of 1900.

When City of Discontent  was first published, it bore the subtitle "An interpretive biography of Vachel Lindsay, being also the story of Springfield, Illinois, USA, and of the love of the poet for that city, that state, and that nation."  But the book is, like Carl Sandburg's Lincoln, not so much a biography as a poetic interpretation of the life of one of the state's leading poets of the first half of the twentieth century.

The publication of You Know Me Al brought instant fame to RingLardner (1885-1933), one of the great American humorists of this century.Considered the satirist's greatest work, the book is a collection of lettersfrom one Jack Keefe, a baseball "busher," to his longtime friend,Al Blanchard, in their midwestern hometown.The voice of Jack Keefe perfectly echoes the vernacular of the baseballplayers Lardner had covered for years as a newspaper reporter followingthe exploits of Chicago's Cubs and White Sox. Readers instantly recognizedin Jack the full range of human foibles. This universality accounts forthe enduring appeal of You Know Me Al."Ring Lardner is the idol of professional humorists and of plentyof other people, too."-- E. B. White"His work is a contribution of genuine and permanent value to thenational literature."-- H. L. Mencken"Mr. Lardner . . . lets Jack Keefe the baseball player cut out hisown outline until the figure of the foolish, boastful, innocent athletelives with us."-- Virginia Woolf

Now considered possibly Illinois' greatest poet, Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) saw himself as a bard of the working class. Chicago Poems brought him to national attention and is one of the few Chicago classics that can also be termed an American classic. It includes such famous poems as "Chicago" and "Fog," as well as many others whose subjects range from the lives of ordinary citizens to city scenes and World War I. Written in powerful free verse, the poems are notable for their realistic portrayal of the struggle of working people and their focus on the lyric beauty of the urban environment.

Sherwood Anderson's first and most autobiographical novel and the only one set in Illinois, Windy McPherson's Son received uniformly high praise from literary critics when it was first published. It tells the story of an Iowa newsboy who fights his way to fortune in Chicago, then questions the meaning of his success. It was republished in 1922 with a different ending, which appears as an appendix in this edition.

This eloquent memoir records the Civil War experiences of Robert J. Burdette, private in the 47th Illinois Infantry Regiment.  From Peoria to Corinth, from Corinth to Vicksburg, up the Red River country, down to Mobile and Fort Blakely, and back to Tupelo and Selma, the 47th marched three thousand miles during Burdette's tour, from March 1862 to December 1864.  In a literate voice rare in war memoirs, Burdette speaks of comradeship built and tested, the noise and confusion of the battlefield, the conflicting feelings of witnessing a military execution. Both nostalgic and piercingly immediate, his remembrances evoke the sights, sounds, smells, and above all the inner feelings stirred up by war, from exuberance to terror and from patriotic fervor to compassion for a fallen enemy.  Originally published--on the eve of another great conflict--in 1914, The Drums of the 47th is a moving depiction of the inner life of the common soldier. Like Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Burdette's book puts a human face on the war and his words speak to all who have served or imagined serving under fire. The introduction by John E. Hallwas provides a biographical sketch of Burdette and a commentary on his engaging Civil War memoir.