[The Fields, a sequel to The Trees,] is an equally amazing recreation of the life and speech and thought of the American frontier wilderness 140 years ago. In a series of separate episodes, each a complete unit in itself, Mr. Richter has shown through the life of one family the transformation of a hunting society into a farming one. Without needless display of his vast antiquarian background and with none of the cheap melodrama that degrades most historical fiction, he has told a wise and deeply moving story about a weak and very human man and about a woman who is almost great in her simple strength of character. Seldom in fiction has the atmosphere of another age been so completely realized. Part of the magical spell of Mr. Richter's book is cast directly by its prose, which makes loving and yet unpretentious use of the vocabulary and typical...