Weeds

Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dj. 1974 (c.1972). 2nd printing. Hardcover. [good sound copy, light foxing to edges of text block but no significant wear; the jacket shows light wear at edges and corners, minor age-toning]. (Lost American Fiction) Series Republication of a novel originally published by Harcourt, Brace & Co. in 1923, depicting the lives of hardscrabble Kentucky tenant farmers, with a female protagonist "who has spirit, beauty, and a restless seeking for a purpose in life, but who is brutalized by farm life." In his Afterword, series editor Matthew J. Bruccoli relates the story of his discovery of the book and of his research into the life of its author, whose only published novel this was -- and touts it as a lost masterpiece, the equal of Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," and "a peak achievement in the revolt-from-the-farm school of naturalistic American fiction." (Lewis himself was once engaged to the author, and had been an advocate for the book, unfortunately to no avail, as it was a commercial failure at the time of original publication.) .