Reader of the Purple Sage: Essays on Western Literature and Environmental Literature

The essays collected in Reader of the Purple Sage reflect Ann Ronald’s wide-ranging interests. Here are highly informative—and deeply informed—critical essays on writers as diverse as Zane Gray, Edward Abbey, and Wallace Stegner, as well as the Tonopah Ladies (a group of literary women who found their voices in the unlikely setting of a mining boomtown) and Terry Tempest Williams, and on such varied topics as the image of Reno in nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction. Included are several recent essays in which Ronald thoughtfully discusses the burgeoning field of environmental writing, some of its principal themes and concerns, and its best-known practitioners.