A report by Gene Aisenbrey
It was nearing 1:00 pm, and already folks were gathering about to hear the presentation. While waiting for the commencement of the main activity, the people visited and looked over the 38 books authored by Hamlin Garland which were on display by Joe Johnson, Columbia, South Dakota. Two of the books which garnered special interest were Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character (1898) and Book of the American Indian (1923).At 1:30 pm, Sue Gates, Director, Dacotah Prairie Museum, officially opened the gathering by remarking that it was sponsored by the South Dakota Humanities Council; Brown County Historical Society; the Westerners International, Dakota Midlands Corral; the Hamlin Garland Memorial Society; and the Dacotah Prairie Museum and Foundation. Gene Aisenbrey, Facilitator, Hamlin Garland Memorial Society, was asked to say a few words, in which he outlined the establishment and goals of the Society. Sue introduced the speaker, Dr. Joseph B. McCullough, Jr., University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who held the audience's attention for about 40 minutes on the topic of Garland; he then opened up the floor for questions and answers, and upon conclusion of that 20 minutes, Sue dismissed the program and folks voluntarily hung around for another 30-40 minutes to view the books and chat with Dr. McCullough on a more informal basis. We shut the doors on the room at 3:30 pm, helping Joe Johnson load up his book display. Mary Jane Harris also brought some of her Garland books to be displayed. She also brought a hand-written letter by Hamlin Garland to her uncle, who lived in close proximity to Garland in the 1930 era in California. Dr. McCullough will decipher the note as Garland's handwriting is not the "Palmer method" which we used in school these many years ago.
A local man by the name of Brett Garland was in attendance; he is a great-nephew of Hamlin Garland, being the great-grandson of Franklin Garland, Hamlin's brother!
We know that the audience garnered a substantial amount of facts about Garland from the speaker and each other. We hope this talk will give rise to helping the interest grow relevant to Hamlin Garland, prairie author, biographer and lecturer.
--Editor's note-- We are pleased to learn of the existence of another Garland Society, this one centered in Aberdeen, SD, not far from where Garland's father homesteaded for some years after Hamlin's birth. The preceding report came to us through the courtesy of Gene Aisenbrey, founder of the Aberdeen group. He and the Hamlin Garland Memorial Society may be reached at P.O. Box 405, Aberdeen, SD 57402.Dr. McCullough has distinguished himself as co-editor of the Selected Letters of Hamlin Garland (University of Nebraska Press) which appeared two years ago, as well as editor of Garland's two most durable titles, Main-Travelled Roads (Bison) and Son of the Middle Border (Penguin).
A bookshop in Merchantville, NJ has listed a first edition of The Shadow World in dust jacket at $850.Seen at the latest Antiquarian Book Fair in Los Angeles: a copy of Daughter of the Middle Border inscribed by Garland to Henry Cabot Lodge (Sr.) with the Lodge bookplate, priced at $450. Lodge (1850-1924) was Senator from Massachusetts at the time the book appeared in 1921.
A new study by John William Crowley, Dean of American Letters: The Late Career of William Dean Howells (Univ. of Massachusetts Press), devotes a chapter to the burdens and benefits of the putative "Deanship" conferred on Howells and Garland.Uneven Land: Nature and Agriculture in American Writing by Stephanie L. Sarver (University of Nebraska Press) contains a chapter on Garland's frontier stories.
For all the world like another Zane Grey reprint, Garland's Western novel, The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop, has been republished by Forge/Tor at $5.98. The colorful cover can be viewed on both Amazon.com and BN.com. Garland and Grey? It's not a bad fit; here is Garland in November 1932:
Learning that Zane Grey was on board, I sent him a note asking him to call on me (The Garlands are sailing to Hawaii where Garland has a speaking engagement. Ed.). The following morning we met on the promenade deck and took a walk together. For an hour or more we talked of whales, sharks, and swordfish, and finally of Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, whose old-time trails were familiar to us both. The longer I conversed with him, the better I liked him. He impressed me as a natively adventurous, manly, clean-minded American, in his excellences , as well as his defects. While his speech, like his writing, lacked literary grace, I found him a most interesting companion.He was not in the least boastful of his amazing success. On the contrary, he treated me -- despite my lesser vogue -- with gratifying respect. To him, no doubt, I was an ancient, weatherbeaten literary landmark.
That he felt his isolation from his fellow craftsmen was evident. He spoke as if he were a bit bewildered by this lack of comradeship on their parts and was frank to say, "I can not understand why the critics ignore all the good work I have put into my books."
"You can afford to ignore them, " I replied, "for your publisher told me that your royalties last year were more than any other fictionist of our time or any other time -- more than Scott or Dickens ever received." (...)
He told of signing, at the request of his mother, the Frances Murphy pledge. "I have never tasted an intoxicating drink since, " he said. "I don't smoke, and I detest dirty stories."
These virtues added to my regard for him. "I share your dislike of obscenity, " I replied. "So far as I have read your books, I have found them clean and manly. You _suggest_ the vices of the border without revelling in them." (...)
That he is a man of resolution and power one cannot deny. The longer I talked with him, the more clearly I saw that he had written as best he could. His books are not literature in the strict sense of the word, but they display imagination, and an unusual power of description. He knows the romantic side of the southwest by virtue of careful survey. We spent an hour in going over scenes familiar to us both and recalling characters, both white and red, who had made western America a place of world-wide interest.
Though a small man, he seemed inexhaustibly vital. He told me that he wrote all the time. "I wrote my first book in a bare room with nothing in it but a table and a stove and a chair, and my early stories in barns, tents and small boats. Now I have a luxurious workshop, and I should work there, but I like the open so I take my work along with me and write in the intervals of hunting and fishing."
We breakfasted together the following morning and had more talk of his experiences in California and of his outings on the plains. (...) He spoke of his first success with a note of reminiscent wonder. "The money came in wagon-loads and for a time I spent it like the proverbial drunken sailor. Men cheated me on all sides. I made bad investments. I bought boats and motor-cars, and worse yet, I financed film companies, and it was in this way that I came to know the shady side of Hollywood."
As I listened, I thought of Thoreau's one room home, and Hawthorne, who could not afford a horse and carriage, and I was forced to admit that Zane Grey and Edgar Wallace represent the democratic taste in fiction as Douglas Fairbanks, Bill Hart and Charlie Chaplin represent it in the moving pictures.
(from the unpublished typescript of Fortunate Exiles, The Garland Collection, University of Southern California)