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200 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume One: The Authors Philip A. Greasley, general editor (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001. Pp. x, 666. Illustrations,suggestions for further reading, appendix, index. $59.95.) This volume presents, in alphabetical (that is, persons with their origins and/ order, approximately four hundred en- or most lasting affiliationswith the area) tries on individual authors. Each entry and “Midwesternliterature.” This ambi- begins with name, birth and death dates, guity has implications for the usefulness and major pseudonyms, and continues of the volume. Who is represented here, with sections on biography, literary sig- and on what basis? nificance, identification of major works, Anderson’s essay, for instance, con- and suggestions for further secondary cludes with the intriguing note that four reading. The entries are signed and in- of the eight American winners of the clude the institutional affiliations of some Nobel Prize in literature are midwest- one hundred contributors,all members erners: Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Heming- of the Society for the Study of Midwest- way, Saul Bellow, and Toni Morrison. By ern Literature,the project’s sponsor. This geographicaland cultural affiliation and volume is the first of a proposed three by attitude these four belong in this vol- for the Dictionary of Midwestern Litera- ume. The situation is less clear for other ture. Volume two, in encyclopedia-entry figures who also appear: Black Elk, born format, will cover important historical in Wyoming, raised in the northern and research sites, movements, themes, plains, and oblivious to the white man’s and genres; volume three will be a dis- cultural construct of “region”;Joyce Carol cursive, chapter-organized, literary his- Oates, whose connections to the region tory of the Midwest. are a master’s degree in English at the The author entries are prefaced by University of Wisconsin and five years general editor Philip A. Greasley’s intro- of teaching in Detroit; James Norman duction, outlining the definitions and Hall, co-author with Charles Nordhoff organization of the content, and by an of The Mutiny on the Bounty (1932>,born overview essay, “The Origins and Devel- in Iowa but educated in Boston, a Brit- opment of the Literature of the Midwest,” ish soldier, and an English citizen; and by David D. Anderson, a founder of the Upton Sinclair, whose only connection society and a prolific contributor to its is that his muckraking expod TheJungle enterprises.Both essays attempt to define (1906) involves Chcago. “Midwest,”that the geographical and intellectualbound- is to say, is as uncertain a term for the aries of the project, to fix the term “Mid- dictionary’s editors and authors as it is west” and so to clarify the principles of for the rest of us. inclusion and exclusion. Neither piece, The individual entries are generally however, successfully identifies the dif- competent and nicely proportioned.The ference between “Midwestern authors” discussions of major works by an author REVIEWS 201 and the notes on further reading are es- author Robert McCloskey, and Gary Ed- pecially helpful in directing the reader ward (Garrison) Keillor. Readers might to the author’s writings and from there dispute some of the choices, but the vol- to an acquaintance with the secondary ume as a whole suggests the vitality of scholarship. The chosen authors com- the midwestem contribution to litera- prise an effective selection, from histori- ture. cally significant figures like Booth Tar- lungton, Carl Sandburg, Kurt Vonnegut, DAVIDJ. NORDLOHis professor of English and Aldo Leopold, to promising new- at Indiana University Bloomington, co- comers like poet Jonis Agee and novel- editor of American Literary Scholarship: ist Nettie Jones, and to more broadly An Annual (Duke University Press), and popular and influential people like Wil- general editor of A Selected Edition of W liam McGuffey (of the Readers), chldren’s D. Howells (Indiana University Press). Karl BodrnerS Studio Art By W. Raymond Wood, Joseph C. Porter, and David C. Hunt (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Pp. x, 164. Maps, illustrations, notes, references, index. $45.00.) The publication of Karl Bodmerk Studio souri Rver from St. Louis to Fort McKen- Art coincideswith the 200th anniversary zie, Montana, and assesses the scientific celebration of Lewis and Clark‘s expedi- significance of their work, placing it tion. Although thirty years lapsed before within the context of the ethnographic Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied and philosophies of the time. Porter also de- his hired Swiss artist, Karl Bodmer, ar- tails the pair’s unexpected delay in New rived in America to document flora, Harmony In&, the winter before 1833 fauna, and Indian cultures, data from and the effect the long stopover had on Lewis and Clark’s journey still provided both men. Maximilian’s interactions with guidance and inspiration. At the Peale resident naturalists Charles-Alexandre Museum in Philadelphia, the prince Lesueur and Thomas Say turned New viewed natural and ethnographic objects Harmony into the prince’s “finishing gathered during the 1803 expedition. school” for North American exploration, He later met with William Clark in St. whde Bodmer spent h time drawing wa- Louis and received a gift of Clarks “Spe- tercolors and sketches of the settlement cial Map of the Missouri River in the and its vicinity years 1804, 1805 and 1806.” “A Publication History of Karl Bod- The book is divided into three sec- mer’s North American Atlas,” by David tions. “The Eyes of Strangers: ‘Fact’ and C. Hunt, traces where and when the litho- Art on the Ethnographic Frontier, 1832- graphs were published and also includes 34,”by Joseph C. Porter, describes Max- research into the artist’s complex print- imilian and Bodmer’s voyage up the Mis- ing processes and methods of sales, and .
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