Books published by publisher Hastings College Press

Mary Wilkins Freeman's 1903 short-story collection The Wind in the Rose-Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural is a masterpiece of regional gothic. Set in New England, the stories included in this collection explore the hidden and suppressed anxieties of women's daily lives. From the vampire-like titular character in "Luella Miller" to the childless Mrs. Bird in "The Lost Ghost," the women in these stories face the realities and horrors of domestic life at the turn of the twentieth century.

Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Gene Stratton-Porter’s 1912 novel The Harvester focuses on David Langston, a young bachelor who lives in and makes his living from the swamps and forests of rural Indiana. A best-seller of the early 20th century, The Harvester combines romance and nature writing to demonstrate through David what a harmonious relationship between humans and the natural world could look like.

Amarilly Jenkins may be a scrub-girl, but she has ambitions. Through hard work, determination, and a few hilarious high jinks, the cheerful young girl pulls herself and her entire family out of poverty. One-part Pollyanna and one-part Pygmalion, Amarilly will make you laugh. Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley (1915) was Belle K. Maniates’s most popular novel, inspiring a play and several silent film adaptations.

Hal Warner may be a rich kid, but even he can see that the working conditions in the Colorado coal mines are inhumane. Inspired by real-life events, King Coal follows Hal’s undercover exploration of the coal industry and his attempts to unionize the workers. Like Upton Sinclair’s more famous novel The Jungle (1906), this 1917 novel highlights the often unfair and unsafe conditions experienced by working-class Americans in the early 20th century.

Bartley Alexander is slowly being buried alive, unable to bridge the gap between his successful life and the freedom he thought success would bring. An important career, a caring wife, a lovely home—these just aren’t enough for Bartley. Torn between duty and desire, he realizes too late that when you flirt with disaster, disaster might just flirt back. Originally published in 1912, Alexander’s Bridge is Willa Cather’s first novel.

Nostalgic scenes and quaint characters. That’s what Theodore Dreiser expects to find when he sets off from New York City on a road trip with friend Franklin Booth to explore the Indiana of his childhood. What he finds is a rural countryside on the cusp of dramatic social and technological changes. In A Hoosier Holiday (1916), a forerunner to the American road novel, reality competes with nostalgia as writer Dreiser and illustrator Booth offer insightful meditations on rural America at the beginning of the 20th century.

Disillusioned by the urban labor strikes of early 20th-century Oakland, California, Billy and Saxon Roberts flee the city to begin anew as ranchers in the idyllic Sonoma Valley. Their journey back to the land provides the backdrop for the novel’s exploration of a classic American theme—the promise of wide-open spaces—and echoes Jack London’s own journey as a rancher in the Sonoma Valley. The Valley of the Moon is a love story. A road novel. A study of American independence.