A Wilder Rose: Rose Wilder Lane, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Their Little Houses, Susan Wittig Albert

Few people who read the much loved Little House series will be aware that the books have given rise to an academic industry. Scholars have toiled away, researching the lives of Laura Ingalls Wilder, her husband Almanzo and their daughter Rose Wilder Lane. More contentiously, they have asked, ‘Who wrote the books?’ Diehard fans believe that their sweet little Laura wrote every word. Some readers concede that Rose had a hand in tidying up the books. Others argue convincingly that Rose, a professional writer, rewrote the books completely, from her mother’s drafts. A Wilder Rose
is not an academic book. Susan Wittig Albert acknowledges a debt to William Holtz ‘s The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder and bases her own book on the assumption that Rose was in fact the principle author of the books. She writes:

‘But while the story itself is true, A Wilder Rose is a novel. With the diaries, journals, and letters as my guide, I have taken my own imaginative journey through the real events of those years. I have treated the real people as fictional characters’

I’m not usually keen on fictionalised accounts of real lives, but this book drew me in and won me over to the idea; it reads in part like a genuine autobiography.
( A Wilder Rose )