Most Popular Books by Wallace Stegner

From the “dean of Western writers” (The New York Times) and the Pulitzer Prize winning–author of Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety, a fascinating look at the old American West and the man who prophetically warned against the dangers of settling it In Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner recounts the sucesses and frustrations of John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of Indian tribes of the American Southwest. A prophet without honor who had a profound understanding of the American West, Powell warned long ago of the dangers economic exploitation would pose to the West and spent a good deal of his life overcoming Washington politics in getting his message across. Only now, we may recognize just how accurate a prophet he was.

A book of timeless importance about the American West and a modern classic by National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Wallace Stegner. "Stegner catches the paradoxical essence of American civilzation." —Choice The essays, memoirs, letters, and speeches collected in The Sound of Mountain Water encompass memoir, nature conservation, history, geography, and literature. Compositions delve into the post-World War II boom that brought the Rocky Mountain West--from Montana and Idaho to Utah and Nevada--into the modern age. Other works feature eloquent sketches of the West''s history and environment, directing our imagination to the sublime beauty of such places as Robbers Roost and Glen Canyon. A final section examines the state of Western literature, of the mythical past and the diminished present, and analyzesd the difficulties facing any contemporary Western writer. Written over a period of twenty-five years, a time in which the West witnessed rapid changes to its cultural and natural heritage, and by a writer and thinker who will always hold a unique position in modern American letters, The Sound of Mountain Water is a hymn to the Western landscape, an affirmation of the hope emobided therein, and a careful and rich investigation of the West''s complex legacy.

A passionate work about the fragile and arid West that Stegner loves

This tour-de-force of American literature and a winner of the National Book Award is a profound, intimate, affecting novel from one of the most esteemed literary minds of the last century and a beloved chronicler of the West. Joe Allston is a cantankerous, retired literary agent who is, in his own words, "just killing time until time gets around to killing me." His parents and his only son are long dead, leaving him with neither ancestors nor descendants, tradition nor ties. His job, trafficking the talent of others, has not been his choice. He has passed through life as a spectator, before retreating to the woods of California in the 1970s with only his wife, Ruth, by his side. When an unexpected postcard from a long-lost friend arrives, Allston returns to the journals of a trip he has taken years before, a journey to his mother''s birthu00adplace where he once sought a link with his past. Uncovering this history floods Allston with memories, both grotesque and poignant, and finally vindicates him of his past and lays bare that Joe Allston has never been quite spectator enough.

In a literary career spanning more than fifty years, Wallace Stegner, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, has created a remarkable record of the history and culture of twentieth-century America. These thirty-one stories demonstrate why he is acclaimed as one of America''s master storytellers. Here are tales of young love and older wisdom; of the order and consistency of the natural world and the chaos, contradictions, and also continuities of the human being. There is sweet love in a berry patch, there are bittersweet reunions, trials, and tests of manhood and friendship, and the sometimes foolish and impractical yet noble dreams of man. Each of these stories embody some of the best virtues and values to be found in contemporary fiction.

Joe Allston, the retired literary agent of Stegner''s National Book Award-winning novel, The Spectator Bird, returns in this disquieting and keenly observed novel. Scarred by the senseless death of their son and baffled by the engulfing chaos of the 1960s, Allston and his wife, Ruth, have left the coast for a California retreat. And although their new home looks like Eden, it also has serpents: Jim Peck, a messianic exponent of drugs, yoga, and sex; and Marian Catlin, an attractive young woman whose otherworldly innocence is far more appealing—and far more dangerous.

Bo Mason, his wife, Elsa, and their two boys live a transient life of poverty and despair. Drifing from town to town and from state to state, the violent, ruthless Bo seeks outhis fortune--in the hotel business, on new farmland, and, eventually, in illegal rum-running through the threacherous back roads of the American Northwest. Bo chases after the promise of the American dream through Minnesota, the Dakotas, Saskatchewan, Montana, Utah and Nevada, but ultimately there is no escaping the devastating reach of the Depression and his own ruinous fate. In this affecting narrative, a defining masterpiece by the "dean of Western writers" (The New York Times), Wallace Stegner portrays more than three decades in the life of the Mason family as they struggle to survivle during the lean years of the early twentieth century. With an introduction by Robert Stone.

An American masterpiece and iconic novel of the West by National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner—a deeply moving narrative of one family and the traditions of our national past. Lyman Ward is a retired professor of history, recently confined to a wheelchair by a crippling bone disease and dependant on others for his every need. Amid the chaos of 1970s counterculture he retreats to his ancestral home of Grass Valley, California, to write the biography of his grandmother: an elegant and headstrong artist and pioneer who, together with her engineer husband, made her own journey through the hardscrabble West nearly a hundred years before. In discovering her story he excavates his own, probing the shadows of his experience and the America that has come of age around him.

In a literary career spanning more than fifty years, Wallace Stegner created a remarkable record of the history and culture of twentieth-century America. Each of the thirty-one stories contained in this volume embody some of the best virtues and values to be found in contemporary fiction, demonstrating why the author is acclaimed as one of America''s master storytellers. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Wallace Stegner founded the acclaimed Stanford Writing Program-a program whose alumni include such literary luminaries as Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, and Raymond Carver. Here Lynn Stegner brings together eight of Stegner''s previously uncollected essays-including four never-before-published pieces -on writing fiction and teaching creative writing. In this unique collection he addresses every aspect of fiction writing-from the writer''s vision to his or her audience, from the use of symbolism to swear words, from the mystery of the creative process to the recognizable truth it seeks finally to reveal. His insights will benefit anyone interested in writing fiction or exploring ideas about fiction''s role in the broader culture.

ufeffIntroduction by Terry Tempest Williams Afterword by T. H. Watkins ufeffCalled a “magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom” by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.

Wallace Stegner weaves together fiction and nonfiction, history and impressions, childhood remembrance and adult reflections in this unusual portrait of his boyhood. Set in Cypress Hills in southern Saskatchewan, where Stegner''s family homesteaded from 1914 to 1920, Wolf Willow brings to life both the pioneer community and the magnificent landscape that surrounds it. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Wallace Stegner''s remarkable portrait of Joe Hill, the man and the legend: from his entrance into the Industrial Workers of the World union, the most militant organization in the history of American labor, to his trial, imprisonment, and final martyrdom. Blending fact with fiction, Wallace Stegner retells the story of Joe Hill--the Wobbly bard who became the stuff of legend when, in 1915, he was executed for the alleged murder of a Salt Lake City businessman. Organizer, agitator, "Labor''s Songster"--a rebel from the skin inwards, with an absolute faith in the One Big Union--Joe Hill fought tirelessly in the frequently violent battles between organized labor and industry. But though songs and stories still vaunt him, and his legend continues to inspire those who feel the injustices he fought against, Joe Hill may not have been a saintly crusader and may have been motivated by impulses darker than the search for justice.

Where others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their ?lovely Deseret,? a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit trees. Unwelcome in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they migrated to the dry lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to establish Mormon country, a wasteland made green. Like the land the Mormons settled, their habits stood in stark contrast to the frenzied recklessness of the American West. Opposed to the often prodigal individualism of the West, Mormons lived in closely knit ?øsome say ironclad ?øcommunities. The story of Mormon country is one of self-sacrifice and labor spent in the search for an ideal in the most forbidding territory of the American West. Richard W. Etulain provides a new introduction to this edition.

Margaret Stuart, the proud wife of a prosperous Iowa farmer, sets high standards for herself and others. Happy in her marriage, she tries to look the other way when her genial husband, Alec, takes to the bottle. When Elspeth, Margaret''s sister, comes to live with them, the young woman is immediately captivated by the beauty and vitality of the farm, and by the affection she receives from those around her. But as summer turns into fall, and the friendship between Alec and Elspeth deepens, Margaret finds her spirit tested by a series of events that seem as cruel and inevitable as the endless prairie winters. Long out of print, Remebering Laughter (1937) marked Wallace Stegner''s brilliant literary debut.

Sabrina Castro, an attractive woman with a strong New England heritage, is married to a wealthy, older California physician who no longer fulfills her dreams. An almost accidental misstep leads her down the slow descent of moral disintegration, until there is no place for her to go but up and out. How Sabrina comes to terms with her life is the theme of this absorbing personal drama, played out against the background of an old Peninsula estate where her mother lives among her servants, her memories of Boston, and her treasured family archives. A Shooting Star displays the storytelling powers that Wallace Stagner''s fans have enjoyed for more than half a century.

A classic novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety. Here is the incredible, moving sequel to the bestselling Big Rock Candy Mountain by the "dean of Western writers" (The New York Times). Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City not for his aunt’s funeral, but to encounter the place he fled in bitterness forty-five years ago. A successful statesman and diplomat, Mason had buried his awkward childhood and sealed himself off from the thrills and torments of adolescence to become a figure who commanded international respect. Both the realities of the present recede in the face of ghosts of his past. As he makes the perfunctory arrangements for the funeral, we enter with him on an intensely personal and painful inner pilgrimage: we meet the father who darkened his childhood , the mother whose support was both redeeming and embarrassing, the friend who drew him into the respectable world of which he so craved to be a part, and the woman he nearly married. In this profound book, the sequel to the bestselling The Big Rock Candy Mountain, Wallace Stegner has drawn an intimate portrait of a man understanding how his life has been shaped by experiences seemingly remote and inconsequential.

The first collection published since his death in 1993 contains 15 never-before-published essays by Stegner, a little-known novella, and his most powerful and best-known essays on the American West.

Wallace Stegner, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1972, was a great writer. As an author, historian, teacher, and environmentalist, he influenced countless prominent individuals during his long life. Showcasing some of those relationships, these letters (written between 1933 and 1993) cover a broad range of topics, including literature, history, conservation, and Stanford. Here are letters to colleagues, like Ansel Adams, friends and family, as well as many students who went on to become well–respected authors, among them Wendell Berry, John Daniel, Barry Lopez, William Kittredge, and Robert Stone. In 1946 he founded the prestigious Stegner Fellowship Program. In 1961, his memos to then Secretary of the Interior Steward Udall set the tone and agenda for what would become the modern environmental movement. Here, in their entirety, are the letters that track it all. For a man who had no interest in writing an autobiography, they offer an inside look at his "unedited thoughts and opinions, and to a factual narrative untransformed by the literary imagination, to life lived before being lived," writes his son Page Stegner in his introduction. Here is history as told through correspondence with people who helped shape literature, politics, and environmentalism in the twentieth century.

Through his work for the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society and his service as special assistant to the Secretary of the interior, Stegner contributed substantially to the emergence and development of the environmental movement.

Nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs gathers together Wallace Stegner’s most important and memorable writings on the American West: its landscapes, diverse history, and shifting identity; its beauty, fragility, and power. With subjects ranging from the writer’s own “migrant childhood” to the need to protect what remains of the great western wilderness (which Stegner dubs “the geography of hope”) to poignant profiles of western writers such as John Steinbeck and Norman Maclean, this collection is a riveting testament to the power of place. At the same time it communicates vividly the sensibility and range of this most gifted of American writers, historians, and environmentalists.

Three interviews with Wallace Stegner in which he speaks with candor and eloquence about the arts of writing and living.

A broad assemblage of the writing of a great figure in literature and the American Westfiction and nonfiction