As William Lyon Phelps wrote in the Bookman (December 1921), during her lifetime Gene Stratton-Porter was "a public institution, like Yellowstone Park." By 1915 Americans had purchased more than eight million copies of her books, establishing her as one of the five most prominent American authors of the early twentieth century. She produced twelve novels, nine nature studies, two children's books, three volumes of poetry, and a collection of essays. According to Russel Nye, Stratton-Porter's "formula was a good one--sentimentality, faith and optimism, innocence and trust, nostalgia for country life, the curative and educational powers of Nature (with a capital N)." As Stratton-Porter explained in "My Work and My Critics" (1916), "the task I set myself was to lead every human being I could influence afield; but with such reverence instilled into their touch that devastation would not be ultimately complete." She certainly encouraged her readers--female and male--to venture "afield," and throughout her career she advocated a policy of conservation that was decades ahead of her time.
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Anne K. Phillips, Kansas State University|with the assistance of Heidi L. M. Jacobs Editorial Assistant, University of |Nebraska, Lincolnand Jennifer Putzi Editorial Assistant, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Gene(va) (Grace) Stratton-Porter from
Dictionary of Literary Biography. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.
