Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Little House Books Vol. 2 (LOA #230): By the Shores of [Hardcover]

Originally published from 1932 to 1943, Laura Ingalls Wilder’sLittle Housebooks are classics of children’s literature, beloved by millions. But readers who last enjoyed them as children may be astonished at the quiet poetry of Wilder’s prose and the force and poignancy of her portrait of the lives of American pioneers. Now The Library of America and editor Caroline Fraser present a new two-volume edition that affirms Wilder’s place in the American canon, reintroducing these enduring works to readers young and old. Here, for the first time in two collectible hardcover volumes, are all eightLittle Housenovels—brilliant narratives of the early life of Laura Ingalls and her family as they grow up with the country in the woods, on the plains, and finally in the small towns of the advancing American frontier—plus the posthumous novellaThe First Four Years, which recounts the early years of the author’s marriage to Almanzo Wilder. This second volume includesBy the Shores of Silver Lake,The Long Winter,Little Town on the Prairie,These Happy GoldenYears, andThe First Four Years, plus two rare autobiographical pieces that reveal real life events not included in the novels and address the inevitable question: what happened next?

A companion volume gathersLittle House in the Big Woods,Farmer Boy,Little House on the Prairie,andOn the Banks of Plum Creek.

Each volume features a newly-researched chronology of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life and career, and helpful notes. The volumes are also available in a deluxe collector’s boxed set,The Little House Books: The Library of America Collection.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant wrlÑ