Mary Austin

Set in a small college town in California, Mary Austin's 1908 novel Santa Lucia explores the limited options available to women in early 20th century America. Focusing on the married lives of three young women--William Caldwell, Serena Lindley, and Julia Stairs--the novel is a feminist look at marriage. Like Kate Chopin's 1899 novel The Awakening, Santa Lucia was almost resoundingly rejected by critics in its own day for the seemingly immoral suggestion that women could find happiness and fulfillment outside their own marriages.

The Land of Journeys' Ending is a novel written by Mary Austin. The story is set in the early 1900s in the American West, and follows the life of a young woman named Nophaie, who is of Native American descent. Nophaie is raised by her grandfather, a traditional Navajo medicine man, and has a deep connection to the land and the spirits that inhabit it. As Nophaie grows older, she becomes torn between her Navajo heritage and the modern world that is encroaching upon her people's way of life. She is sent to a boarding school for Native American children, where she struggles to adapt to the culture and traditions of the white world. Eventually, Nophaie returns to her Navajo community, but finds that her people are facing numerous challenges, including the loss of their land and the erosion of their culture. Throughout the novel, Austin explores themes of identity, cultural conflict, and the relationship between humans and nature. She also provides a vivid and detailed portrait of life in the American West during this time period, highlighting the beauty and complexity of the landscape and the people who inhabit it. Overall, The Land of Journeys' Ending is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that offers a unique perspective on the history and culture of the American West. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Native American history, environmentalism, or the literature of the American West. This is a new release of the original 1924 edition. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

The enduring appeal of the desert is strikingly portrayed in this poetic study, which has become a classic of the American Southwest. First published in 1903, it is the work of Mary Austin (1868-1934), a prolific novelist, poet, critic, and playwright, who was also an ardent early feminist and champion of Indians and Spanish-Americans. She is best known today for this enchanting paean to the vast, arid, yet remarkably beautiful lands that lie east of the Sierra Nevadas, stretching south from Yosemite through Death Valley to the Mojave Desert. Comprising fourteen sketches, the book describes plants, animals, mountains, birds, skies, Indians, prospectors, towns, and other aspects of the desert in serene, beautifully modulated prose that conveys the timeless cycles of life and death in a harsh land. Readers will never again think of the desert as a lifeless, barren environment but rather as a place of rare, austere beauty, rich in plant and animal life, weaving a lasting spell over its human inhabitants.