Before Little House in the Big Woods launched her career in children's literature, Laura Ingalls Wilder tried her hand at autobiographical nonfiction with a manuscript aimed at an adult audience and entitled Pioneer Girl. Despite repeated attempts to sell it to a variety of publishers that even entailed some rewrites from Wilder's daughter, the successful author Rose Wilder Lane, the manuscript went unpublished for decades until this project driven by the South Dakota State Historical Society.

This unpolished first draft drawn from handwritten notebooks is a little wooden and meandering, which is to be expected, but it is an indispensable artifact for any fan of the Wilder's Little House books. While this manuscript wasn't published in Wilder's lifetime, she more than made up for that failure by mining it throughout her writing career, turning one unsold book into a franchise that continues to thrive to this day. And Wilder's daughter would also go on to write several books and stories drawn from material in her mother's autobiography. It reminds me of the time I applied for a job at my wife's company, and while I didn't get the position, my interview with her boss made him realize my wife was vastly underpaid and resulted in a huge raise for her that benefited our household finances.

The editors of the book enrich the manuscript with extensive annotations that research every name and situation that Laura mentions, providing mini biographies for all the people in Wilder's life and in-depth details about major events like the grasshopper plague, the hard winter, and the time the Ingalls family crossed paths with the Bloody Benders of Kansas.

Recommended for Little House completists. (Or in my case, the husbands of Little House completists. Thanks for reading this to me as I cooked our suppers over the past few months, Adele.)

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: "Will It Come to Anything?": the Story of Pioneer Girl / Pamela Smith Hill
• The Pioneer Girl Manuscripts / Pamela Smith Hill
• Editorial Procedures / Nancy Tystad Koupal & Rodger Hartley
• Pioneer Girl: Kansas and Missouri, 1869-1871 -- Wisconsin, 1871-1874 -- Minnesota, 1874-1876 -- Iowa, 1876-1877 -- Minnesota, 1877-1879 -- Dakota Territory, 1879-1880 -- Dakota Territory, the Hard Winter of 1880-1881 -- Dakota Territory, 1880-1885 -- Dakota Territory, 1881-1888 / Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Conclusion: "I Don't Suppose Anyone Will Take the Trouble" / Pamela Smith Hill
• Appendixes: A. Facsimile of "Juvenile Pioneer Girl" -- B. The Benders of Kansas -- C. The Gordon Party -- D. The Singing School
• Bibliography
• Index ( )

I think it took me something like 6 months to read this, on account of its massive size led me to leave it at work and poke away at it on my lunch hours. I find Wilder's life fascinating, so reading the manuscript that eventually led to her published books was very interesting. The annotators footnoted with the best of them, and kept a neutral tone when pointing out discrepancies. ( )

This is Wilder's autobiography, with content very similar to the seven book Little House series, but more true to the facts/chronological order, written in the first person voice, and more condensed. It's like a draft on which the Little House series is based. The writing here is not as developed as in the Little House series, and Laura is not as sympathetic a character (not because she is unpleasant, but because the narrative focused on events that happened and didn't develop her character very much.) but I enjoyed finding out about what "really happened" to Laura. An editor provided a ton of footnotes to the autobiography, giving background information on all the towns she lived in and all the people she mentioned in the book. I skipped most of them, though. I felt the footnotes interfered with the flow of the story. ( )

So many (long!) footnotes, and such a weighty book to cart around! I can't fault the book though - the footnotes provide so much depth and historical knowledge about the story and the time. I applaud all of the meticulous research and thought that went into the development of this book, especially considering that it took around 80 years for it to be published. A must-read for anyone who loves the "Little House" series. ( )

Definitely an eye opener into Laura and her life. I owe Michael Landon an apology. There's more truth in the TV series than I knew... :)

That being said, some of the notes were annoying. 1/3 of them seemed to be the editor's personal opinion. Objective commentary or informational points are helpful but sometimes phrases were pointed out as "not as strong in the fictional series as this book" and those points are 1) based on personal opinion and 2) comparisons that the reader can make on their own. Judiciously choose which notes you read. That being said, there was an IMMENSE amount of research put into this book and the other 2/3s worth of points were well worth it. ( )