Cimarron Critical Essay | Critical Review by Stanley Vestal

SOURCE: "Miss Ferber's Myth," in The Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. VI, No. 35, March 22, 1930, p. 841.

In the following mixed review of Cimarron, Vestal suggests that while the novel is historically inaccurate, it is nonetheless true to the "spirit" of the region.

We have long since become accustomed to the habit of English novelists, who come to this country for a brief visit and then go home and write a book about the States. But for an American novelist to apply the same methods in writing about an unfamiliar region within the States is something of a novelty. Miss Ferber has done this in her new book on Oklahoma [Cimarron], and done it daringly, adding American efficiency to the tried technique of her British exemplars. For she spent far less time in Oklahoma than the Englishman commonly spends in the States, and the resulting book is vastly...
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