Hamlin Hannibal Garland (September 14, 1860 – March 4, 1940) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.

Biography

Born in West Salem, Wisconsin, he lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but he settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884 to pursue a career in writing. His first success came in 1891 with Main-Traveled Roads, a collection of short stories inspired by his days on the farm. He serialized a biography of Ulysses S. Grant in McClure's Magazine before publishing it as a book in 1898. The same year, Garland traveled to the Yukon to witness the Klondike Gold Rush, which inspired The Trail of the Gold Seekers (1899).

A prolific writer, Garland continued to publish novels, short fiction, and essays. In 1917, he published his autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border. The book's success prompted a sequel, A Daughter of the Middle Border, for which Garland won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. After two more volumes, Garland began a second series of memoirs based on his diary.

Garland died at age seventy-nine, after moving to Hollywood, California, where he devoted his remaining years to investigating psychic phenomena, an enthusiasm he first undertook in 1891. He was buried in Neshonoc Cemetery in West Salem, Wisconsin. In his final book, The Mystery of the Buried Crosses (1939), he tried to defend such phenomenon and prove the legitimacy of psychic mediums.

Hamlin Garland lived on a farm between Osage, and St. Ansgar, Iowa for quite some time. Many of his writings are based on this era of his life.

The Hamlin Garland House in West Salem is a historical site.

Bibliography

Middle Border Series

• A Son of the Middle Border (1917)
• A Daughter of the Middle Border (1921)
• Trail-Makers of the Middle Border (1926)
• Back-Trailers from the Middle Border (1928)

Memoir Series

• Roadside Meetings (1930)
• Companions on the Trail (1931)
• My Friendly Contemporaries (1932)
• Afternoon Neighbors (1934)

Other works

• Under the Wheel (1890)
• Main-Travelled Roads (1891)
• Jason Edwards (1892)
• A Member of the Third House (1892)
• A Little Norsk (1892)
• A Spoil of Office (1892)
• Prairie Folks (1893)
• Prairie Songs (1893)
• Crumbling Idols (1894)
• Rose of Dutcher's Coolly (1895)
• Wayside Courtships (1897)
• The Spirit of Sweetwater (1898)
• Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character (1898)
• Boy Life on the Prairie (1899)
• The Trail of the Gold Seekers (1899)
• The Eagle's Heart (1900)
• Her Mountain Lover (1901)
• The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop (1902)
• Hesper (book) (1903)
• The Light of the Star (1904)
• The Tyranny of the Dark (1905)
• Witch's Gold (1906)
• The Long Trail (1907)
• Money Magic (1907)
• The Shadow World (1908)
• The Moccasin Ranch (1909)
• Cavanagh, Forest Ranger (1910)
• Other Main-Travelled Roads (1910)
• Victor Ollnee's Discipline (1911)
• The Forester's Daughter (1914)
• They of the High Trails (1916)
• A Pioneer Mother (1922)
• The Book of the American Indian (1923)
• The Westward March of American Settlement (1927)
• Prairie Song and Western Story (1928)
• Iowa, O Iowa (1935)
• Joys of the Trail (1935)
• Forty Years of Psychic Research (1936)
• The Mystery of the Buried Crosses (1939)

Notes

External links

• The Hamlin Garland Society
• Works by Hamlin Garland at Project Gutenberg
• Jamaica Plain Historical Society

Biography

Newlin, Keith. Hamlin Garland: A Life. University of Nebraska Press (2008).