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Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first novel in 1932, at 65. Little House in the Big Woods opened the Little House series, based on her own pioneer family's life in the American Midwest, and she kept writing the books into her seventies.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

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Before the novels, Wilder spent more than a decade writing for the Missouri Ruralist, a farm paper, including a regular column called 'As a Farm Woman Thinks'. The series grew to eight novels, published between 1932 and 1943 and drawn from her family's life as settlers in the 1870s and 1880s; a ninth, The First Four Years, was found after her death and published in 1971. Her daughter, the writer Rose Wilder Lane, edited the manuscripts closely, and historians still debate how much of the prose is Lane's. The books later inspired the television series Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983).

Türkçe oku
Laura Ingalls Wilder ilk romanını 1932'de, 65 yaşında yayımladı. Büyük Ormandaki Küçük Ev (Little House in the Big Woods), kendi ailesinin Amerika'nın iç bölgelerindeki yerleşimci hayatını anlatan Küçük Ev dizisinin ilk kitabıydı. Wilder diziyi yetmişli yaşlarında da yazmayı sürdürdü.

Wilder romanlardan önce on yılı aşkın süre Missouri Ruralist adlı bir tarım gazetesine yazdı; “As a Farm Woman Thinks” (Bir Çiftçi Kadının Düşünceleri) başlıklı düzenli bir köşesi vardı. Dizi, 1932–1943 arasında yayımlanan sekiz romana ulaştı; kitaplar ailesinin 1870'ler ve 1880'lerde yeni topraklara yerleşme serüvenini anlatır. Dokuzuncu kitap The First Four Years, Wilder öldükten sonra bulundu ve 1971'de yayımlandı. Yazar olan kızı Rose Wilder Lane müsveddeleri titizlikle elden geçirdi; metnin ne kadarının Lane'e ait olduğu tarihçiler arasında hâlâ tartışılıyor. Kitaplar sonradan Bozkırdaki Küçük Ev (1974–1983) adlı televizyon dizisine ilham verdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Laura Ingalls Wilder
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