Part I: Outsiders -- 1 Laura (1867-1885) -- 2 Rose and Laura (1886-1920) -- Part II: The Family Business -- 3 The Albanian Inspiration -- 4 The Writers' Colony and the Crash -- 5 The Big American Novel -- 6 The Break-Up -- Part III: The Estrangement -- 7 The Hard Winter -- 8 Libertarians in Connecticut -- 9 Freedom -- 10 Two Legacies -- Part IV: Literature as Politics -- 11 Roger, Rose's Libertarian Legacy -- 12 What We Want

"Generations of children have fallen in love with the pioneer saga of the Ingalls family, of Pa and Ma, Laura and her sisters, and their loyal dog, Jack. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books have taught millions of Americans about frontier life, giving inspiration to many and in the process becoming icons of our national identity. Yet few realize that this cherished bestselling series wandered far from the actual history of the Ingalls family and from what Laura herself understood to be central truths about pioneer life. In this groundbreaking narrative of literary detection, Christine Woodside reveals for the first time the full extent of the collaboration between Laura and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Rose hated farming and fled the family homestead as an adolescent, eventually becoming a nationally prominent magazine writer, biographer of Herbert Hoover, and successful novelist, who shared the political values of Ayn Rand and became a mentor to Roger Lea MacBride, the second Libertarian presidential candidate. Drawing on original manuscripts and letters, Woodside shows how Rose reshaped her mother's story into a series of heroic tales that rebutted the policies of the New Deal. Their secret collaboration would lead in time to their estrangement. A fascinating look at the relationship between two strong-willed women, Libertarians on the Prairie is also the deconstruction of an American myth"--