This masterpiece of naturalism offers an unblinking portrait of the
American Midwest during a time of intense change. Part of Belt's
Revivals Series and with a new introduction by Brianne Jacquette.
Originally published in 1891, Main-Travelled Roads includes 11 short
stories set in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, or the region of America
Hamlin Garland called the "Middle Border." Depicting an agrarian life of
exploitation, misogyny, and poverty, Garland's radical, realist
stories--written in a mode he called "veritism"--refute romantic
conceptions of the rural Midwest. Unrelenting, yet strangely hopeful in
its view of how things ought to be, this collection is gripping,
hard-hitting, and surprisingly beautiful.
An intriguing look at an era of intense change, Main-Travelled Roads
was Garland's first major success, a little-known classic of American
literature and the Midwest.