Laura Ingalls Wilder is one of the most beloved children's authors of all time, but William Holtz contends that she may not have been the sole author of the Little House series that bore her name. While Laura's life did serve as the inspiration for the books, Holtz believes that her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, actually took her mother's memoirs and refurbished them into the novels that would be read by millions. In this captivating biography, Holtz chronicles Rose's life from childhood, to travels abroad that began at age seventeen, and finally back home to Missouri in her...

Although generations of readers of the Little House books are familiar with Laura Ingalls Wilder's early life up through her first years of marriage to Almanzo Wilder, few know about her adult years. Going beyond previous studies, Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder focuses upon Wilder's years in Missouri from 1894 to 1957. Utilizing her unpublished autobiography, letters, newspaper stories, and other documentary evidence, John E. Miller fills the gaps in Wilder's autobiographical novels and describes her sixty-three years of living in Mansfield, Missouri. As a result, the process of...

The western fur trade era--a time when trappers and traders endured constant danger from man, beast, and weather--was one of the most colorful periods in American history. Over a decade ago, William R. Nester wrote the first biography of Robert Campbell (1804-1879); the subsequent discovery of nearly five hundred new documents, most from two major caches of letters, led to this even-more-detailed and vivid account of Campbell's self-described "bold and dashing life."

Campbell came to America from Ireland in 1822 and entered the fur trade soon after. He quickly rose from trapper...