When A Lantern in Her Hand came out in 1928, critics took little notice,
but people everywhere soon discovered it. By the end of 1919, even as
the Great Depression set in, Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel was in its
twenty-first printing. Now translated into over twenty languages, A
Lantern in Her Hand has outlasted literary fashions to touch generations
of readers. It is the classic story of a pioneer woman. Bess Streeter
Aldrich knew what she was writing about. Her protagonist, a
strong-minded pioneer woman named Abbie Deal, was modeled on her own
mother, who in 1854 had traveled by covered wagon to the Midwest. In A
Lantern in Her Hand, Abbie accompanies her family to the soon-to-be
state of Nebraska. There, in 1865, she marries and settles into a sod
house of her own. The novel describes Abbie's years of child-raising, of
making a frontier home able to withstand every adversity. A disciplined
writer knowledgeable about true stories of pioneer days in Nebraska,
Bess Streeter Aldrich conveys the strength of everyday things, the
surprise of familiar faces, and the look of the unspoiled landscape
during different seasons. Refusing to be broken by hard experience,
Abbie sets a joyful example for her family - and for her readers. This
Bison Book edition includes Bess Streeter Aldrich's own story of how she
came to write A Lantern in Her Hand.