Giving Earth: A John G. Neihardt Reader

Internationally known forBlack Elk SpeaksandA Cycle of the West, John G. Neihardt (18811973) wrote in almost all major genres: fiction, lyric and epic poetry, biography, autobiography, travelogue, literary criticism, and the familiar essay.The Giving Earthincludes nearly forty selections representing every phase of Neihardt's art, from the passionate poetry of his youth to the masterworks of his maturity to the lapidary reflections of his old age. In her introduction, Hilda Neihardt, who was with her father when he interviewed Black Elk at Pine Ridge, provides many personal details surrounding the publication of his works. She also introduces each section. Included among the early lyrics are "Let Me Live Out My Years." The short stories that brought him his first fame are represented by "Dreams Are Wiser Than Men" and the memorably horrific "Alien." An excerpt fromThe River and Idocuments a trip down the Missouri as atmospheric and eventful as any described by Mark Twain.A Cycle of the West, the five-volume masterwork written over nearly thirty years, receives its due with chapters fromThe Song of Three Friends, The Song of Hugh Glass, The Song of Jed Smith, The Song of the Indian Wars,andThe Song of the Messiah. The extent of Neihardt's achievement is apparent long before the reader comes to the selections from the classicBlack Elk Speaksand the fine, late novelWhen the Trees Flowered.Concluding the anthology are selections from the literary criticism that helped form his philosophy of literature and the autobiographical writing of his twilight years.The Giving Earthis the gift of a writer's generous spirit and unlimited imagination.Neihardt, John G. is the author of 'Giving Earth: A John G. Neihardt Reader' with ISBN 9780803233256 and ISBN 0803233256.