The Bower Atmosphere
A Biography of B. M. Bower
Seiten
2024
University of Nebraska Press (Verlag)
978-1-4962-3621-0 (ISBN)
University of Nebraska Press (Verlag)
978-1-4962-3621-0 (ISBN)
Reconstructing B. M. Bower’s daily life as it is documented in her diaries, letters, and family papers, this biography claims Bertha Muzzy Bower as a progenitor: a writer and western maverick whose daily life proved as dramatic as her fiction.
B. M. (Bertha Muzzy) Bower was the first author to make a living writing popular westerns, creating more than sixty novels and hundreds of short stories that were read by millions of Americans. Bower’s were among the first westerns adapted to film, and the exploits of her cowboys at the fictional Flying U ranch established a tradition that flourishes to this day. A Montana mother of three, she began writing short stories in 1900, desperate for money that would allow her to leave her unhappy marriage to a cowboy employed by the McNamara ranch.
Discouraged by her editors from publicizing her identity as a woman, Bower’s important contribution to American mass culture faded from cultural memory after her death in 1940. Based on extensive research in Bower’s personal archives and publishers’ records, as well as interviews with some of her descendants, The Bower Atmosphere recounts the remarkable twists and turns of Bower’s life, from her beginnings on a Montana cattle ranch to her success as a writer of serial westerns, all the while contending with the conflicting pressures of editors, husbands, children, and her own creative aspirations.
B. M. (Bertha Muzzy) Bower was the first author to make a living writing popular westerns, creating more than sixty novels and hundreds of short stories that were read by millions of Americans. Bower’s were among the first westerns adapted to film, and the exploits of her cowboys at the fictional Flying U ranch established a tradition that flourishes to this day. A Montana mother of three, she began writing short stories in 1900, desperate for money that would allow her to leave her unhappy marriage to a cowboy employed by the McNamara ranch.
Discouraged by her editors from publicizing her identity as a woman, Bower’s important contribution to American mass culture faded from cultural memory after her death in 1940. Based on extensive research in Bower’s personal archives and publishers’ records, as well as interviews with some of her descendants, The Bower Atmosphere recounts the remarkable twists and turns of Bower’s life, from her beginnings on a Montana cattle ranch to her success as a writer of serial westerns, all the while contending with the conflicting pressures of editors, husbands, children, and her own creative aspirations.
Victoria Lamont is a professor of English at the University of Waterloo. She is the author of Westerns: A Women’s History (Nebraska, 2016) and coauthor of Judith Merril: A Critical Study.
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. An Unbearable Servitude
2. A Brief and Stormy Passage
3. A Lodge in the Wilderness
4. Nature at Her Uncanny Worst
5. Days of Little Things
6. Readjustments
7. “Don’t Be Pious”
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Erscheinungsdatum | 18.01.2024 |
---|---|
Zusatzinfo | 13 photographs, index |
Verlagsort | Lincoln |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
Themenwelt | Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte |
Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik | |
Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies | |
ISBN-10 | 1-4962-3621-1 / 1496236211 |
ISBN-13 | 978-1-4962-3621-0 / 9781496236210 |
Zustand | Neuware |
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
wie sich das weibliche Gehirn jetzt verändert und Sie diese neue …
Buch | Hardcover (2023)
Mosaik (Verlag)
24,00 €
Buch | Softcover (2023)
Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH (Verlag)
34,95 €