''West from Home'' is a collection of letters sent by the American journalist

Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, mostly known for the '' Little House on the Prairie'' series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood ...

to her husband

Almanzo Wilder Almanzo James Wilder (; February 13, 1857 – October 23, 1949) was the husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the father of Rose Wilder Lane, both noted authors. Biography Early life Almanzo James Wilder was born on February 13, 1857 a ...

in 1915, published by Harper & Row in 1974 with the subtitle ''Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, San Francisco, 1915''. It was edited by

Roger MacBride Roger Lea MacBride (August 6, 1929 – March 5, 1995) was an American lawyer, political figure, writer, and television producer. He was the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1976 election. MacBride became the first president ...

, the literary executor of their daughter Rose Wilder Lane, and provided with a historical "setting by Margot Patterson Doss". Wilder had been sent to San Francisco to write about the 1915 World's Fair and she visited Rose, who lived in that city, when she was 48 years old and Rose 28. ''West from Home'' is sometimes considered part of the Little House series, which is narrowly a series of nine autobiographical children's novels based on Wilder's life from about 1870 to 1894, ages about three to 27. ''On the Way Home'', sometimes considered the preceding Little House book, is a diary of Laura and Almanzo's 1894 migration from South Dakota to Missouri, with setting by Rose Wilder Lane from her childhood recollections.

Reception

'' Kirkus Reviews'' observed that "in a sense the well loved chronicler of pioneer childhood had not yet been born", 17 years before ''Little House in the Big Woods''. "The author of these letters home is Mama Bess, a farm wife and occasional contributor to the ''Missouri Ruralist'' ...". It concluded, "though students of children's literature might be interested to know that Rose Lane gave her mother help with her writing, Mama's greater preoccupation with recouping a loan made to the Lanes can have mattered to no one but husband Manly. That we find these letters only intermittently interesting can hardly be blamed on Mrs. Wilder who intended them for her husband and friends, but at best they serve as an object lesson proving the English composition cliche 'write about what you know'."

References

External links

{{Little House 1974 non-fiction books American travel books Panama–Pacific International Exposition Little House books Harper & Row books Books about the San Francisco Bay Area Collections of letters Books published posthumously