The son of poor farmers, Garland spent his early years moving around the midwestern states with the family as they tried to eke out an existence. Educated at the Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage, Iowa, Garland went to Boston to pursue a literary career in 1886. In Boston, he immersed himself in reading at the public library and eventually took a job as a teacher at the Boston School of Oratory. He began contributing short stories to Harper's Weekly and these formed the basis for his first book, Main Travelled Roads, which appeared to much acclaim in 1891. The following year was a productive one for Garland. In 1892, he published his second volume of short stories, Prairie Folks, as well as the novels, Jason Edwards: An Average Man, A Member of the Third House and A Spoil of Office. In 1898, he published an excellent autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant, for which he had been commissioned by McClure's Magazine. He followed the gold rushers to the Klondike and his experiences there led to The Trail of the Gold Sekers in 1899. Garland was a prolific writer and produced numerous essays and novels over the ensuing decade. He began to tire of writing fiction and turned to writing his autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border, which appeared in 1917. This was hugely successful and led to a sequel, A Daughter of the Middle Border, which won him the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1922. During the 1930's he published a series of memoirs. His interest in psychic phenomena led to Forty Years of Psychic Research in 1936 and The Mystery of the Buried Crosses in 1939. His other works include Crumbling Idols (1894), The Eagle's Heart (1900), The Tyranny of the Dark (1905), The Shadow World (1908), The Forester's Daughter (1914), A Pioneer Mother (1922), Trail-Makers of the Middle Border (1926), Back-Trailers of the Middle Border (1928), Roadside Meetings (1930), Afternoon Neighbors (1934) and Joys of the Trail (1935). |
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