Mormon Country

Wallace Stegner

U of Nebraska Press, Jan 1, 2003 - History - 362 pages

Where others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their ?lovely Deseret,? a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit trees. Unwelcome in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they migrated to the dry lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to establish Mormon country, a wasteland made green. Like the land the Mormons settled, their habits stood in stark contrast to the frenzied recklessness of the American West. Opposed to the often prodigal individualism of the West, Mormons lived in closely knit ?øsome say ironclad ?øcommunities. The story of Mormon country is one of self-sacrifice and labor spent in the search for an ideal in the most forbidding territory of the American West. Richard W. Etulain provides a new introduction to this edition.

Contents

• Meet Me at the Ward Home: 1
• Mormon Trees: 19
• That Lieth FourSquare: 23
• The Land Nobody Wanted: 31
• Mud over Lyonesse: 50
• Forty Thousand Saints in One Act: 55
• And Nothing Shall Hinder or Stay Them: 70
• In Our Lovely Deseret: 82
• Shibboleth: 98
• Arcadian Village: 106
• Chief President of the Islands of the Sea: 126
• The Gatheringup of Zion: 134
• Myth and Legend: 140
• Lares and Penates: 169
• Family Reunion: 180
• Two Champions: 185
• Fossil Remains of an Idea: 207
• Looking Backward: 225
• THE MIGHT OF THE GENTILE: 235
• Buenaventura and the Golden Shore: 237
• The Burg on the Bear: 249
• Fabulous Mountain: 257
• The Mexican in Minnie Number Two: 267
• The Wild Bunch: 279
• The Terrible River: 291
• Notes on a Life Spent Pecking at a Sandstone Cliff: 300
• Artist in Residence: 317
• The Home of Truth: 329
• The Last of the Sticks: 342
• Index: 349

About the author

Wallace Stegner (1909?93) was one of America?s most distinguished novelists and essayists. His works include the Pulitzer Prize?winning Angle of Repose and The Spectator Bird, winner of the National Book Award.
Richard W. Etulain is a professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico. He is the coauthor of The American West: A Twentieth-Century History (Nebraska 1989) and Stegner: Conversations on History and Literature.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Mormon Country
• Author: Wallace Stegner
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: U of Nebraska Press, 2003
• ISBN: 0803293054, 9780803293052
• Length: 362 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / 19th Century; History / United States / State & Local / General