edna ferber

Ferber: Edna Ferber and Her Circle: Paperback Book
$15.95
This is a biography of an unusually successful and an unusual woman. Though some of her more well remembered works survive through countless productions of Showboat and viewings of the several versions of the movies made from her plays and books like Giant, Cimarron and Stage Door and the endless productions of her plays, she herself is less well-remembered than other groundbreaking female writers like Edith Wharton. Yet, as we learn from this biography, she was probably one of the most successful American writers portraying the grandeur of this vast country. And as she was able to portray the role of women in creating the patterns of American families, she herself was a powerful and independent woman. This biography tells her story from a point of view of an insider. Julie Gilbert writes of her grand-aunt in a way that describes her through the author's personal vision and then goes back to review Ferber's earlier years with outside research and access to intimate personal information that would be otherwise unavailable. Ferber's story is as fascinating as her stories and this biography is fun and informative. It is a must read.

So Big (Perennial Classics)
$13.00
In the early pages of So Big we learn that So Big is the nickname of Dirk DeJong, a young man who has long outgrown the childhood name from his mother, Selina. At this point I figure that the novel would be about the title character, but So Big is really about his mother Selina. Selina takes a job as smalltown schoolteacher in Illinois knowing that in two years she will be eligible to work in a city school and be better paid (the novel is set in the late 1800's). In High Prairie Selina finds out that she is nothing like the hardworking and hard lives of the farmers and farming families of the town. High Prairie is an education for her and when she surprisingly marries one of the farmers her life is ultimately linked to the town and the farming life, one which she never would have anticipated. She hopes, of course, for a better life for her son and struggles to do the best she can for him.

So Big won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is a fine novel of argrarian literature. Edna Ferber does well in capturing the hard lives of the farmers without either idealizing their struggle nor demeaning their lives. Literature of this sort (such as A Thousand Acres, which also won the Pulitzer) is strangely appealing to me since I have no real ties to the farming life and have never worked on a farm, but when written well it comes across with great passion and compassion in a novel.

-Joe Sherry

Historic Print (XL): Edna Ferber, co-author of the comedy The royal family"--Her associate is George S. Kaufm
$67.00
This is a museum quality, reproduction print on premium paper with archival/UV resistant inks. Date: 1 photographic print.Subject: 2002719641Notes: 1924Format: SOURCE: Library of Congress

Giant (Perennial Classics)
$14.99
Ferber is a fantastic author, and Giant is one of her best... I don't have a clue how the book relates to the movie, but I have read an endless number of classic and modern books and this one remains one of my all time favorites.