Women—their potential, their success and failures; and America—its successes and failures, were … Edna Ferber's two great themes.

[In her novels] women were not "feminine first and human second," but women with a strong "dash of the masculine." From Dawn O'Hara in 1911 to Christine Storm in 1958, Ferber's heroines possessed not only "feminine" traits …; but also "masculine" traits—love of freedom, daring, adventure, excitement, independence, initiative.

Marriage was not the end of the story in Ferber's novels, but usually the beginning. Through an "ill-assorted" match, her heroines often found themselves in some strange new frightening world where their romantic dreams and illusions about male superiority collapsed, and they had to struggle out of some failure alone, often with a dependent to support. Their husbands, when they did not leave them, constituted obstacles against whom the heroines must struggle.

In making their way, her heroines developed qualities which helped...