Mari Sandoz was a didactic writer. Because of her tendency toward instruction, she found much of American fiction—particularly romantic western novels—thin, "without anything of the push and throb of life, totally inconsequential." She liked bone and muscle in literature. She blamed what she considered the poor quality of domestic fiction on the American writers' tendency to conform to the commercial market, and waged a continuous battle herself against what she termed "eastern editorial rewriting and pressure to recast [her works] on popular western notions." With few exceptions, Sandoz wrote to please herself and considered the market later. In this way she sought to achieve something more lasting, more permanent, in her work. (p. 133)

Sandoz is best known for her nonfiction, particularly the six volumes of history and biography which comprise her Great Plains or Trans-Missouri series. Yet Sandoz began her career writing fiction and, prior to...