Hilda Martinsen Neihardt

The daughter of an international financier, Mona Martinsen was a tall, striking, visionary sculptor studying in Paris with the renowned Auguste Rodin. The son of an American pioneer family on the Great Plains, John G. Neihardt was a short, brilliant, but impoverished poet and writer. It seemed like a colossal mismatch, yet both were irresistibly drawn to the same things. In the beginning as in the end, it was a passion for beauty and a celebration of the marvelous that bound Mona and John. While studying sculpture and exhibiting in Paris, Mona Martinsen was captivated by a little book of poems, A Bundle of Myrrh, a gift from her mother. Mona wrote to the young poet, he replied, and through a series of letters the poet in Bancroft, Nebraska, and the sculptor in Paris, France, discovered much in common. Drawing on correspondence, interviews, archival research, and her own memories, Hilda Martinsen Neihardt tells the story of how the sculptor and the poet met, fell in love, raised a family, and grew old together. Warm and revealing, this timeless love story will delight the admirers of John G. Neihardt and illuminate the life and work of the artist Mona Martinsen.

In 1931 John Neihardt traveled to Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to interview Lakota elders who had witnessed the Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee Massacre. He met Black Elk, and their two weeks of intense talks became Black Elk Speaks, one of the most important biographies of an American Indian ever published. Accompanying John Neihardt to help him observe and to take notes were his two daughters, Enid and Hilda. For the first time Hilda Neihardt presents her memories of those interviews. She celebrates the days and nights of storytelling, camping, feasting, and horseback riding with the fresh eyes of a bright fourteen year old. The volume includes never-before-published photographs and answers many questions about the collaboration between the Lakota holy man and her father, called Peta Wigamou-Gke, or Flaming Rainbow.

Death-defying and vulnerable fur-traders and Indians, demi-devils and almost-angels, and other complex personalities come fully to life in The Ancient Memory, which completes the collecting of John G. Neihardt's early short fiction begun with The End of the Dream and Other Stories. Originally published in popular magazines between 1905 and 1908, these stories about the American frontier illustrated Neihardt's artistry in the short form and foreshadow the themes, situations, and characterizations of his later, better-known work. Although two of the Indian stories, the ironic "Feather for Feather" and the satirical "A Political Coup at Little Omaha," were collected in The Lonesome Trail in 1907, none has been reprinted since early in the twentieth century. Other stories included here are "Like a Woman," featuring the plucky Pelagie, and "The Face in the Balcony," which is dedicated to "those who have gone through life misunderstood." "The Epic-Minded Scot," about a stranger who is stubbornly idealistic and scrupulous, is considered one of Neihardt's best tales. "The Brutal Fact" revolves around a William Tell type of contest between trapping partners that anticipates Neihardt's Song of Three Friends. "The Lure of Woman," a study of greed and revenge, was expanded into his novel Life's Lure. The ineffable "Ancient Memory" carries profound philosophical implications while presenting a strange doppelgänger of sorts. Finally, the memorable Waters—an alcoholic, one-legged, one-eyed frontier printer—is introduced in "The Discarded Fetish," which, with minor changes, became the first half of the novel The Dawn-Builder. In her foreword Neihardt's daughter Hilda Neihardt recalls intimate details incidental to the writing of these stories.

"Neihardt's frontier men and women are appealing dreamers who lose everything, start over and often lose everything again... The stories exude his firsthand knowledge of the frontier, the last remnants of which he explored during the early years of this twentieth century." (Publishers Weekly). "The pacing throughout this collection is admirable. Neihardt sympathizes with the underdog and conveys the loneliness and terror felt even by villains". (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Death-defying and vulnerable fur-traders and Indians, demi-devils and almost-angels, come to life in these early stories by John G. Neihardt. Featured in popular magazines between 1905 and 1908, they are collected in The Ancient Memory and reprinted for the first time in nearly a century. These nine stories, including "Feather for Feather," "A Political Coup at Little Omaha," "The Brutal Fact," "The Epic-Minded Scot," "The Discarded Fetish," and "The Ancient Memory," foreshadow much of Neihardt's later work. Neihardt's daughter, Hilda, provides details about the writing of the stories in the foreword.