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A Lantern in Her Hand: Benigna Machiavelli; Fall River; An Authentic Narrative
Bess Streeter Aldrich (1881-1954) has, quite simply, created a literary gem in A Lantern in Her Hand (1928). The story follows the life of Abbie Deal, a pioneer woman with an invincible spirit who triumphs over every adversity on her primitive Nebraska homestead. Modeled on the life of Aldrich's mother, who journeyed by covered wagon to the Midwest in 1854, A Lantern in Her Hand quickly became a classic. Less than two years after its original publication in 1928, the novel had gone through twenty-one printings.
Aldrich's Deal is the epitome of maternal self-sacrifice; she is "like an old mother partridge who had plucked all the feathers from her breast for the nest of her young" (298). Yet, with all her disappointments and regrets about missed opportunities, Deal is never presented as a pathetic figure. On the contrary, despite the hardships she endures-droughts, grasshopper plagues, prairie fires, blizzards -- Abbie Deal's spirit is never broken. Indeed, Deal seems to draw her strength from the land she has worked so hard to cultivate. Much of the power of the novel, in fact, is rendered through Aldrich's spectacular descriptions of the beautiful prairie landscape and its impact on Abbie Deal's character.
One of the weaknesses of the novel is that it occasionally suffers from underdevelopment or even disjointedness. It is not unusual, for example, for several years to elapse in a single paragraph. But the most important omission from this otherwise excellent edition is a critical introduction. Although Aldrich includes a brief preface recalling how she came to write the book, the reader is left wanting to know more about her life and reputation. For literary works to be successfully reintegrated into the canon, a critical introduction is essential. Moreover, a well-rounded introduction would be useful in terms of both historical and literary contextualization, particularly since comparisons to such...