Mary Austin

Mary Austin published her autobiography in 1932 near the end of her long and creative career. "Earth Horizon" is both an account of her personal life and of her development as a writer. As always true to her special individualism, she wrote this book sometimes in the first person voice and sometimes in the third person. Using this literary device enabled her to speak frankly about her life while also commenting on the events and decisions that formed and influenced her life and writing. "Earth Horizon" is not only unique in its approach but brings a special psychological interest to the subject of autobiography. Mary Austin (nee Hunter) was born in Carlinville, Illinois in 1868 and died in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1934. After graduation from Blackburn College, she moved with her family to California. She later spent time in New York and eventually settled in Santa Fe. A prolific writer, she wrote novels, short stories, essays, plays and poetry. Austin became an early advocate for environmental issues as well as the rights of women and other minority groups. She was particularly interested in the preservation of American Indian culture.

Mary Austin was one of the first to recognize that Native American myths and culture were in danger of being eroded and lost. She then took upon herself the duty of tracking down American Indian songs and poems, saying that she was not giving a translation of the original but what she preferred to call a "re-expression" which she referred to as "re xpressions." It was her belief that the life and environment of the person who made up the words was an important part of understanding the rhythm and meaning of the work. She considered tribal dancing an essential part of the sung or spoken words and her extensive research led first to lectures and later to the publication of "The American Rhythm." It was her work in this field that resulted in Austin being named an Associate in Native American Literature by the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

One of the joys of going on a trip is coming home to share with others your adventures and experiences. Mary Austin felt that way, so when she took an extended trip through an area of the American Southwest, she recorded her impressions in The Land of Journeys' Ending. This is no ordinary travel book and she was no ordinary tourist. Her book goes beyond the descriptions of flora and fauna of the land between the Colorado River and the Rio Grande. It also covers the history, culture and customs of the area. Austin includes not only figures from the past but people she met on the trip. While the book is now decades old, it is timeless and still valid. Humorously, in the author's preface to "The Land of Journeys' Ending" Austin said, "If you find holes in my book that you could drive a car through, do not be too sure they were not left there for that express purpose." Her statement rings true today as much as it did back in 1924.

In 1903 when "The Land of Little Rain" was first published it became an instant success. It has continued to attract and enchant readers ever since that time. It was one of the first books to be written in a popular style about the animals, plants and people of a Southwest desert area. Mary Austin wrote it from her own observations and experiences in the field. She lived the book. It is also one of the first to express the need for the conservation of our natural resources. Carl Van Doren once wrote that Austin should have the degree M. A. E.--Master of American Environment. The book, a work of authenticity and originality still has meaning for twenty-first century readers.

When The Land of Journeys' Ending was first published in 1924, The Literary Reviewwarned, "This book is treacherous, waiting to overwhelm you with its abundant poetry." In it, successful New York author Mary Austin describes the epic journey she undertook in 1923, when left her East Coast home at the age of fifty-five to travel through the southwestern United States, the area where she lived as a child and where she would later retire. The journey the book describes is a double one. Austin describes her transition from the cosmopolitan North East to the arid and largely unfamiliar land between the Colorado River and the Rio Grande. In telling her own story, Austin also tells the story of those who journeyed there before her-–Native American tribes, Spanish conquistadores, miners, adventurers, and California-bound migrants. The result is both an homage to the magnificence of the desert, mountains, rivers, canyons, plants, and animals of the Southwest and a history of the waves of people who inhabited the region. Part memoir, part travel narrative, part historical investigation, and part ecological study, The Land of Journeys' Ending is a moving account of a woman coming full circle, finding solace in the broad landscape of her youth.

One-Smoke Stories is a collection of folk tales from Native American, Spanish Colonial, mestizo, and European American peoples of the Southwest retold in the enthralling words of one of the bestselling writers of her day, Mary Austin. One-Smoke Stories introduces us to a multicultural treasury of character types: lovers, hunters, bandits, shepherds, miners, ranchers, homesteaders, missionaries, government offcials, and supernatural beings. Through folk tales, animal tales, and other genres of popular lore, Mary Austin acquaints readers with the spirituality, humor, and intercultural conflicts of the Southwest. Some stories are overtly political, critiquing the homesteader's conquest of nature, the assimilation policies of Christian missionaries, and the abuses of colonial government. Others use marriage, friendship, community, or religion to illustrate the values and traditions of people in the mainstream and at the margins of American culture. Originally published in 1934, One-Smoke Stories is one of several early-twentieth-century works that bridged the oral and literary realms by intertwining folklore and fiction. Introduced by Noreen Groover Lape, this new edition of One-Smoke Stories, like Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman, Zitkala-Sa's Old Indian Legends, and Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, stands as an important work in the multicultural canon.

-Between the high Sierras south from Yosemite--east and south over a very great assemblage of broken ranges beyond Death Valley, and on illimitably into the Mojave Desert- is the territory that Mary Austin calls the Land of Little Rain. In this classic collection of meditations on the wonders of this region, Austin generously shares -such news of the land, of its trails and what is astir in them, as one lover of it can give to another.- Her vivid writings capture the landscape--from burnt hills to sun-baked mesas--as well as the rich variety of plant and animal life, and the few human beings who inhabit the land, including cattlemen, miners, and Paiute Indians. This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the original 1903 edition.