I’ll Probably Delete This

If Laura Ingalls Wilder's publishing story is recast as the hero's journey, then Marion

Fiery gets to be Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Hello listeners!

Welcome to I'll Probably Delete This, where we learn about books by exploring stories

from successful authors and other notable people from the history of publishing, including

an editor who saves a book from likely rejection and failure.

This is the second episode in our attempt to answer how was it that Laura Ingalls Wilder

successfully published Little House in the Big Woods as a debut author after she turned

65.

In future episodes, we will cover more stories from other successful storytellers and authors.

Join me now as we learn more about publishing through this second episode covering the story

of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her first book.

So far, the early part of Laura's journey to publication that we've covered has been

challenging and fruitless.

If you'll remember, Laura wrote her memoir in early 1930, after the death of her parents

and then her sister Mary.

In part she was motivated to preserve some of the family's stories, particularly those

of her father.

She was also motivated to earn money.

Rose, her daughter, the professional writer, had been encouraging her for years to write

the family stories down and to try to get them published.

Also the stock market had crashed in October of 1929.

Money was tight, Rose was not great with money, and had started a number of building projects

on Rocky Ridge Farm in Missouri.

Laura wanted to bring money then into the house, into the family.

Laura wrote her memoir, titled it Pioneer Girl, and then with the help of her daughter

and her daughter's literary agent, sent the manuscript around to magazines for consideration

as serials.

But nobody wanted it.

Rose then travelled to New York, she fired her literary agent, and proceeded to act as

her mother's own literary agent for the memoir.

She also had no success.

In addition to revising the memoir, Rose also took excerpts from it to create a small manuscript

aimed just at kids.

Rose probably did this while she was in New York and her mother was back in Missouri.

Laura likely didn't know anything about the newly created story.

This story that she creates gets called When Grandma Was a Little Girl, taking its name

from the first line of the story.

This grandma manuscript was around 20 pages typed.

Alright, that should bring us to where we left off our story after the last episode.

One of the primary characters for this episode, and the person I teased at the top, is Marion

Fiery.

If this story is cast as the hero's journey, then it's Marion Fiery who gets to be and

who is the wise sage who sacrifices to aid our hero's quest to publication.

She's going to come into our story pretty soon, but first we've got to go back to Rose.

As I mentioned, Rose, just like her fired agent, had no success selling her mother's

memoir.

Graham Lorimer of the Saturday Evening Post praised the writing in the memoir and said

that they would be interested in fiction based on the same material, but didn't want the

memoir.

Rose then pivoted, thinking she could turn the grandma manuscript into an illustrated

children's story.

She took this manuscript and sent it to a friend who was a children's book author and

also an illustrator.

That friend sent it to Marion Fiery.

To give Fiery just a little bit of biographical background, she was born in Hagerstown, Maryland.

She worked as a librarian and moved to New York.

She joined publisher E.P. Dutton in the early 1920s as part of one of the very first divisions

that was dedicated to juvenile publishing.

Alfred A. Knopf then hired her in 1928 to head its brand new children's department.

After Fiery received the manuscript, she was immediately interested in the story and she

sent a letter to Laura back in Missouri.

In that letter, she told Laura, I like the material.

It covers a period of American history about which very little has been written and almost

nothing for boys and girls.

Fiery went on in that letter to ask Laura to make a number of editorial changes to the

manuscript, which she thought were necessary before she could offer a publishing contract.

Among other things, she asked Laura to lengthen the manuscript significantly, to shift it

from memoir into fiction, and relatedly, to change the point of view from first person

into third, and then to add lots more detail.

After Fiery sent the letter, Rose also met with her in person.

And from that conversation, Rose then also sent a letter with additional directions on

how her mother should tackle revisions and changes to the manuscript.

In Rose's letter, she wrote, Marion says that we are wrong in thinking they are stories

for little children.

It is not a picture book, but must be for children from 8 to 10.

Taking all of this in, Laura got to work, rewriting the story and expanding the manuscript

consistent with Fiery and Rose's suggestions.

Over the course of two months, Laura wrote a new manuscript targeted at 8-10 year olds.

With Rose's advice, she built the narrative around a year, giving the reader a sense of

the effect of the seasons on life in the Wisconsin woods.

More importantly, Laura added all of the detail to the story, filling it with songs, her father's

stories, the descriptions of everyday life.

Her descriptions included things like her family collecting and storing up garden produce

in the attic, or how Pa smoked ham or fish in a hollowed out log, the girls helping Ma

to make butter and cheese, the maple syrup dance at Grandma's house, the cousin's visit

for Christmas in the bitter cold, what they did to stay warm on their sleigh ride back

home, and Ma doing things like weaving hats from straw.

And it's really those details that even now are really the standout aspects of the book.

People are really taken with them and they really feel like you get a sense of the characters

in this situation and understand in a much better way what life might have been like

for a group of people out on the prairie or out in the Wisconsin woods.

State of the pioneer life in the late 1800s in the U.S.

By the time Laura finished writing this new manuscript, it was early May 1931, and Rose

had returned from New York.

And again, Laura had written just like she did with the Pioneer Girl manuscript.

She had written in pencil, on tablets, and what she handed Rose was in relatively good

shape with only a few crossed out lines or words.

The new manuscript sat with Rose for a couple of weeks before she could turn to it for the

typing and the editing.

Rose had writing work of her own to attend to first, at least she did this time.

Once it was ready, or once Rose was ready, the two of them met to discuss the book sometime

in mid-May, and then Rose spent the next week revising, editing, and typing the manuscript.

This including adding chapter breaks and headings, Laura in writing the book again had failed

to include chapter breaks and included only a few headings.

Rose typed and revised quickly so that Laura could do a final read through of the manuscript

less than a week later.

Then at the end of May, the two of them sent it off to Fiery for her consideration.

After they sent the manuscript, Laura and Rose just waited.

They didn't receive any word from Fiery for three months, and it wasn't until September

of 1931 when Fiery contacted Rose to let her know that Knopf was accepting the book and

would be sending a contract.

They also selected a name for the book.

Laura had brainstormed and then crossed out nearly a dozen different options.

For titles, those options had included Long Ago in the Big Woods, The Day Before Yesterday,

Little Girl in the Wild West, that one seems weird, Little Pioneer Girl, not surprising,

and Little Girl in the Big Woods, which obviously got closest to what the final title would

be.

Fiery, however, selected Little House in the Woods, in part echoing the opening line of

the book.

Once upon a time, 60 years ago, a little girl lived in the big woods of Wisconsin in a little

gray house made of logs.

Fiery did send a contract, and it was a three-book deal.

The three-book offer for a children's author was unusual for the time, particularly for

an unknown author like Laura.

It was likely a signal of Fiery's confidence in both the particular book and in Laura as

a writer.

Rose then sent the contract to her new agent, George Bay, to review.

If you remember from the last episode, Rose had fired her prior agent, Carl Brandt, and

while Bay reviewed the contract and before Laura had signed, the economy intervened.

It's not a straight road from here to publication.

Economic conditions, including for New York publishers, got steadily worse following the

stock market crash of 1929.

Fiery sent Rose a handwritten note to tell her, and this is while George Bay is reviewing

the contract, Fiery sent that note to Rose to tell her that Knaf was closing its children's

division and that she would soon be out of a job beginning at the end of the year.

In the note, Fiery explained that her secretary would be around to still manage printing Laura's

book after Fiery left, but would do it just in the role as kind of a clerical assistant

and that Knaf was cutting down on expenses.

Fiery went on to advise Laura not to sign the contract and instead to have Agent George

Bay reach out to Harper's or Macmillan instead.

And then Fiery, interestingly, at least to me, even though she was soon to be out of

a job, expressed her sadness at how things had turned out and where the book was.

She said that, I feel heartsick about the whole thing.

This left Laura with a hard decision.

She could sign the contract, likely collect her initial royalty, but she'd do that knowing

that the division that would at least hopefully publish her book would soon no longer exist.

Or she could try to find a new publisher during what was a severe economic downturn, which

was clear already.

Rose wrote back to Fiery describing her mother's indecision.

And she said in her letter, quote, My mother does not know what to do.

And I dare not advise her because I know nothing whatever about the juvenile field.

She said that her mother was, quote, afraid that if Knaf does not publish it, she may

not find another publisher for it.

Rose also expressed an unwillingness to approach George Bay about her mother's book.

She thought it too much trouble for him and not worth his time.

She said, I'm sure there's not enough money in it to make it worth his while.

I don't feel like asking him to take on as a favor to me a lot of petty detail work on

my mother's stuff.

His time is too valuable.

Knowing what we know now, that seems kind of crazy, right?

The book and the series that would follow would be very successful and would make Bay

and her mother lots of money.

And later it would make Rose lots of money as her mother's heir.

Additionally, Rose had put a good deal of work into getting the book off the ground

and in trying to sell it.

But the book's success wasn't clear at the time.

And in her defense, Bay was only newly Rose's agent.

He wasn't her mother's agent.

And Rose and Bay probably hadn't developed much of a rapport.

So you can understand her sort of unwillingness or hesitancy to put too many demands on him

largely because Rose didn't think there was much money or would be much money to be made

in children's publishing.

Think back to the last episode when she was acting as literary agent.

She was doing it for an adult book being published in national magazines, both things she had

experience with.

She knew from experience you could make a decent living selling adult stories to magazines.

Children's publishing was outside of her knowledge and she didn't think you could make much money

doing it.

After receiving that letter response from Rose, Fiery then takes it upon herself to

pass the book on to Virginia Kirkus at Harper and Brothers Publishing.

Fiery called Kirkus up and pitched her the book.

It's fair to say that Kirkus wasn't impressed with the pitch.

Kirkus later described the pitch as an elderly lady writing a true story in fictional form

about her pioneer childhood.

Well, I'd heard that tale before.

Kirkus wasn't impressed, but she agreed to meet Fiery anyway.

The two met at the Biltmore Hotel in New York for tea just before Kirkus would take the

train home to Westport, Connecticut.

At the meeting, Fiery gave Kirkus the manuscript to review.

Kirkus takes the manuscript, she boards the afternoon train to head home, and starts to

read as the December sun slants into her train car.

As she read, she became captivated.

Captivated by the log cabin, the garden, the straw hats, bears and deer and hunting, fiddle

playing and molasses candy.

She became engrossed in the story, so engrossed she missed her train stop.

Kirkus would later write,

At that time I was living a fairly rugged life in a house lighted with kerosene lamps,

a house with only the most elementary plumbing.

Perhaps that was one reason why I so quickly transported to those Wisconsin woods and small

Laura's adventures.

But the real magic was in the telling.

One felt that one was listening, not reading.

I knew Laura, and the older Laura, who was telling her story.

Here was the book, No Depression Could Stop.

After reading the manuscript, Kirkus wrote Laura right away to offer her a contract.

Despite accepting the book, she, like Fiery before her, asked for some additional changes.

Not nearly as extensive, though.

These changes again related, at least in part, to point of view.

Some of the stories switched from first person and other stayed in third person, and Kirkus

wanted the storytelling to be more consistent and to clear up any confusion.

Laura finally signed a publishing contract for her first book.

Unlike with Knopf, this was a single book deal.

Harper and Brothers put together a well-produced printing of the book, and Laura ended up signing

a book contract two years after she initially sat down to start writing her memoir.

The company Harper and Brothers signed Helen Sewell to do illustrations.

Sewell's illustrations are different than the ones that you may be familiar with by

Garth Williams.

Williams illustrated the various Little House books for a reprint done in the 1950s.

Those are still the illustrations that you'll find on the paperback versions of the books

today.

Before Harper published the book, Kirkus made one last change, altering the title just slightly

to add the word big, so that it would be Little House in the Big Woods.

Harper and Brothers Publishing released Little House in the Big Woods in April 1932.

Laura was now 65 years old when her first book comes out.

The book sold well, even during this growing economic depression.

Newspapers reviewed it favorably, and librarians loved it.

One of the country's first book clubs, the Junior Literary Guild, picked up the book

as a selection for 1932.

Guaranteeing distribution of at least 3,500 books to libraries, the Junior Literary Guild

selection also immediately earned Laura an extra $350 in royalties.

I think it makes sense now to recap some of the themes from our story over these last

two episodes.

It took some time to get from writing to publication, two and a half years or so, but in that time

the book went through many iterations.

So as you heard, two versions of the memoir, a children's picture book, and finally a

fictional account of a single year growing up in the Wisconsin woods.

Laura and her writing also went through a good deal of rejection.

Even after Knopf offered a contract for the book, cost-cutting because of the Great Depression

made that offer look ephemeral.

Another important theme to highlight is that Laura was open and responsive to editing,

suggestions and to criticism.

Laura memoir was rejected by everyone twice.

She responded to the suggestions to make it a fictional account.

She included much more detail in the story as Fiery wanted.

She built the story around the seasons as Rose had suggested.

When she got edits from Fiery, from Rose or from Kirkus, she responded to them, responded

to them quickly, worked on them diligently.

Even though the route wasn't straight, ultimately Laura's first book led to great and lasting

success.

The Little House books, even now, 80 and 90 years later, continue to sell between 50 and

100,000 paperbacks every year, each one in the series.

The other theme, which I'll touch on in the postscript, is that Laura was successful

through a lot of help from other people, three of whom I've highlighted.

So first was her daughter Rose, then we have Marion Fiery and also Virginia Kirkus.

For our postscript to this one, our addendum, I want to briefly mention Virginia Kirkus

again and then spend a bit of time on Marion Fiery.

Kirkus might sound familiar and her name should certainly be familiar to anyone in book publishing.

Virginia Kirkus wouldn't stay at Harper and Brothers very long after publishing Little

House in the Big Woods.

She would eventually leave and start what would become Kirkus Review as an independent

media outlet focused on book reviews.

It is still around today and is still a major force in publishing.

Getting a starred review from Kirkus is still a notable achievement for any book.

Now let's switch to Marion Fiery.

I want to highlight the effect she had and the work that she did on this project, this

book.

Going back to the beginning of this episode, Fiery took a short manuscript that had been

designed to be part of, or what Rose thought would be part of, a kid's picture book.

And in that manuscript, she noticed that it could meet a real gap that she saw in the

market.

That gap was for a well-written American pioneer story covering the late 1800s and aimed at

eight, nine, ten-year-olds.

She then coached Laura and Rose in how to revise the material they had into becoming

the very book that she envisioned.

She persuaded Knopf to publish the book, and she got Laura a three-book deal.

But as we've talked about, things did not work out.

When Knopf canceled their children's division, Fiery went out of her way even though she

was losing her job.

She pushed the book to Virginia Kirkus at Harper's when Rose was unwilling to do it.

And Fiery had no upside, certainly no financial upside, but no clear upside for her to do

the work that she did in getting Little House in the Big Woods published.

Before we end it, I wanted to emphasize this in the postscript because all of us may in

our lives have people like Marion Fiery who are doing important, helpful things and are

helping us along the way or our projects along the way.

And those people don't always get noticed, even though their role may have been critical

or pivotal to our success or the project's success.

Maybe more importantly, don't just benefit from the Marion Fierys in your life.

Be one.

Be Marion Fiery.

Support excellence you see in the world, even if you won't get credit for it.

So hopefully in all of our lives, all of us have people in your life like Marion Fiery

helping to push you along, even if we don't know it.

And hopefully all of us are trying to do the same for others.

For our closing bibliography section, there are a lot of books that I could talk about,

and there's any number of books written about Laura Ingalls Wilder and about the Little

House books.

But first, if you have never read a book from the series, pick one up.

Little House in the Big Woods is great, as are the other books.

One of my favorites is The Long Winter, even though it's a bit depressing and harrowing.

So you could pick that one up.

But I will say, feel free to skip the first four years.

It is often sold as part of the full set of the Little House books.

And I kind of think it shouldn't be.

It was published long after Laura's death and even after Rose's death.

I never particularly cared for that one and suggest you feel free to skip it.

Next, I do have two books that I wanted to raise for your consideration.

First, if you're at all interested in Laura as a writer, there is a book, Laura Ingalls

Wilder, A Writer's Life, by Pamela Smith Hill, published by South Dakota Historical Society

Press, and it was published in 2007.

The second book is Prairie Fires, The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

It was written by Caroline Frazier, published in 2017 by Metropolitan Books.

That one is very well researched and well written.

It won the Pulitzer Prize for 2017.

It was also on a number of sort of best of lists for 2017.

I'll say that in a way it felt like two books or at least a book in two parts.

The first part tells the story of American settlers moving west into the plains and

tells that story through the lens of the families of the Wilders and the Ingalls.

That part is very deeply historically researched and kind of tells the broad sweep of history

covering things like ecology and the harm that farmers did by plowing up the prairie

and interactions of native tribes and the displacement of those native tribes.

It covers the Indian Wars in Minnesota that happened before Laura's birth.

It's really interesting, really well done.

The second half of the book settles down into more of a focus on the relationship between

Laura and Rose.

So obviously both became or were professional writers.

Their relationship at various times was quite strained and both women led fascinating lives

in their own ways and unfortunately in a lot of ways their lives had real personal tragedy.

If either of those books sound interesting to you, I encourage you to pick them up.

Join me next time for another episode of I'll Probably Delete This where we'll explore

more stories of authors, storytellers, great books and publishing.

Happy reading!

Thanks everybody!