“The Little House Books: A Literary Deception?”

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Today's guest is Susan Wittig Albert, one of my first friends in the writing community. The author of the best-selling China Bayles mystery series, her latest novel was inspired by another beloved series - and a rather infamous literary deception...

Susan Wittig Albert : As many readers have learned—sometimes to their surprise—a book isn’t always what it seems to be. Take The Education of Little Tree, for example. Published in 1976, it was marketed as the true story of an orphaned boy who was adopted by his Cherokee grandparents in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression. The book was a huge financial and critical success, selling more than 9 million copies. But 15 years later, readers learned that the author, “Forrest” Carter, was in fact Asa Carter, a KKK member and 1970 Georgia white supremacist gubernatorial candidate. Little Tree, from beginning to end, was a fiction. The disclosure didn’t dampen the book’s popularity, however. Oprah put it on her book club list (and then took it off again), and it was made into a movie.

Then there was Clifford Irving’s claim that Howard Hughes had hired him as a ghostwriter for his memoirs and sold McGraw-Hill on the project, to the tune of $765,000. Howard Hughes came out of seclusion to say that the project was a fraud, and Irving got 17 months in jail. But he got a book out of it, after all. The Hoax was made into a film starring Richard Gere.

And if you’re looking for additional examples, check out the list of 100+ literary hoaxes on Wikipedia.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the writing of the Little House series, the iconic pioneer books for young readers—should be described as a “literary hoax.” But there’s certainly a mystery around the books—and a deception at the heart of it—which for me adds to their enduring interest.

You remember the series, don’t you? 
The eight Little House books were written in the 1930s and 1940s. The series eventually produced a wildly popular TV program (Little House on the Prairie, which enjoyed an eight-year run and endless reruns), as well as dozens of related children’s books. The named author was Laura Ingalls Wilder, who was known to her neighbors as a contributor of short essays to The Missouri Ruralist and an excellent producer of eggs for market.

Over the decades since the first book’s publication, readers, teachers, librarians, and critics have marveled that this farmer’s wife (in her 60s when Little House in the Big Woods was published) could have written so many polished, publishable books. In fact, Ursula Nordstrom, one of the series editors, marveled at their extraordinary quality: “None of the manuscripts ever needed any editing. Not any. They were read and then copy-edited and sent to the printer.”

Laura must have been, in one critic’s phrase, “an untaught literary genius.” Not quite. 

Laura Ingalls Wilder did have some remarkable stories to tell about her pioneer childhood, which she wrote down in a pencil manuscript called “Pioneer Girl.” That document became the source for the eight Little House books, all published by Harper. But while Laura produced the penciled drafts, the typescripts that went to the publisher were the work of her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, a writer of books and magazine fiction and nonfiction who produced two bestsellers of her own and 70-some magazine stories and articles during the years she worked on her mother’s books.

Those are the facts behind my novel, A Wilder Rose, which is based on a careful reading of the daily diaries Rose kept in the 1930s. These unpublished diaries (held in the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library) detail her work on her own fiction and nonfiction and on her mother’s books. They confirm—at last—just how much time and effort Rose contributed to the rewrites of Laura’s stories.

But Rose told no one of her work on her mother’s material. She sold the first book to Marion Fiery at Knopf, claiming it was her mother’s independent work. In her correspondence with her literary agent, George Bye (who also represented the Little House books) and with the editors who acquired and worked on the series, Rose insisted that she had no involvement with the books beyond being her mother’s “consultant.” And she never mentioned the books in her copious correspondence with other writers.

Laura, for her part, submitted Rose’s finished typescripts as if they were her own, sending them with a signed cover letter (sometimes drafted by Rose) to literary agent George Bye, who then sent them on to the Harper editors. The copy-edited manuscripts were returned to Laura, who gave them to Rose for checking, then returned them to the editors via Bye.

It’s not likely that the co-authors thought of their project as a literary deception. For both of them, writing was a commodity, and they wanted to sell books. The Wilders, retired from their subsistence farm, had no source of income except for Rose, who had supported them with an annual cash subsidy since 1920 and was eager to find or create a source of reliable income for her parents. When the stock market crashed in 1929 (Rose lost not only her own money but the funds she had invested for her mother), she turned to marketing her mother’s pioneer stories, hoping they would bring in some cash. And they did. Over time, the royalties provided the Wilders with a fine living, freeing their daughter from her financial obligation.

Rose’s motives for the deception also involved her professional status. She did not want to be seen as a ghostwriter, especially for “juveniles.” (Children’s literature at that time did not have the status it enjoys today.) She felt that ghostwriting, if it were known, could damage her reputation as a writer—although in the years 1932-1934, she ghostwrote five “true-life” adventure books for Lowell Thomas, again keeping her work secret.

But whether Laura and Rose intended to deceive, deceive they did. Laura was celebrated as the series author both before and after her death in 1957, and especially after Little House on the Prairie became required viewing for families across the country. Her name is on several literary awards and on libraries and reading rooms. When literary researchers of the 1980s began to suggest that Rose had something to do with the books, the idea was not popular. In fact, William Holtz’s 1993 biography of Rose, The Ghost in the Little House, provoked such a hurricane of indignation from Laura’s devoted fans that subsequent scholars approached the question of authorship only tentatively. Readers were enchanted by the romantic picture of a sweet little old lady, sitting down all by herself to write (in longhand!) the true stories of her pioneer childhood, perhaps by the light of a kerosene lamp. And since Rose herself was frequently presented as a rather unpleasant woman who was given to fits of depression, it became fashionable to discount her influence. As far as readers were concerned, Laura’s sole authorship was established fact.

All of this was in my mind when I sat down to write A Wilder Rose. Set in rural Missouri during the Great Depression, it tells the true story behind the Wilder myth. To me, it doesn’t matter how the Little House books were written or by whom: they stand securely as fictional representations of a vital part of our American heritage, as seen by a child of pioneer parents.

But I believe that we need to know the truth that lies behind the fictions that shape our perceptions of ourselves and our histories. I hope that A Wilder Rose will encourage readers to understand the Little House books in the context in which they were written, and appreciate them for what they are: the work of a remarkable mother and daughter, who for compelling personal reasons, concealed their collaboration.

Susan is the author/co-author of over 50 books for adults and 60 for young readers. You may read more about her work at www.susanalbert.com. For more about A Wilder Rose (including free downloads of reader resources), visit www.aWilderRoseTheNovel.com. The book is available in print and eBook formats from online retailers.

ROSEMARY: I seem to remember hearing something about this when I was a bookseller, but I never knew the whole story! Next people will be saying Shakespeare didn't write all those plays - oh wait...

Susan will be stopping by to say hello today and she has generously offered one lucky JR reader a signer copy of A Wilder Rose - so weigh in on Laura, Little House and Literary Hoaxes and it may be you.