This morning I was reading some Landmark History of the American People with Rose and Beanie, a quite fascinating chapter about Eli Whitney, and it mentioned an event that happened in 1809. That year always rings a bell for me: it was the year Laura Ingalls Wilder’s maternal grandmother, Charlotte Tucker Quiner Holbrook, was born—the Charlotte I wrote four novels about, and the mother of Caroline Quiner Ingalls (Laura’s Ma) in the Caroline books by Maria Wilkes.
A number of notable folks were born in that same year:
• Abraham Lincoln
• Charles Darwin
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Edgar Allen Poe (The cast of Snoopy bursts forth into song in my brain: “Poe, Edgar Allen, American poet, born in eighteen hundred and nine…”)*
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Louis Braille
• Felix Mendelssohn
• Nicolai Gogol
…and no doubt a great many other memorable people. A lot of world-changers born that year, eh?**
* Doesn’t matter that I’ve heard the Snoopy soundtrack probably five hundred times over the course of my life (between my own high-school devotion to it and the obsession of more than one of my kids)—I still laugh every single time Charlie Brown chimes in with what he’s pretty sure are titles of Poe’s most famous works, and one of them is “Dickens’ Christmas Carol.” Hee!
** This post doesn’t really have a point. I just like to make lists.
A frequently asked question:
Where can I find a listing of all the Little House books in order?
Here you go:
Books about Martha Morse, Laura’s great-grandmother, by me, Melissa Wiley:
Little House in the Highlands
The Far Side of the Loch
Down to the Bonny Glen
Beyond the Heather Hills
Books about Charlotte Tucker, Laura’s grandmother, also by me:
Little House by Boston Bay
On Tide Mill Lane
The Road from Roxbury
Across the Puddingstone Dam
Books about Caroline Quiner Ingalls, Laura’s mother, by Maria Wilkes & Celia Wilkins:
Little House in Brookfield
Little Town at the Crossroads
Little Clearing in the Woods
On Top of Concord Hill
Across the Rolling River
Little City by the Lake
A Little House of Their Own
Books by and about Laura Ingalls Wilder (the originals):
Little House in the Big Woods
Farmer Boy
Little House on the Prairie
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
The Long Winter
Little Town on the Prairie
These Happy Golden Years
The First Four Years
Books about Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, by her heir, Roger Lea MacBride:
Little House on Rocky Ridge
Little Farm in the Ozarks
In the Land of the Big Red Apple
The Other Side of the Hill
Little Town in the Ozarks
New Dawn on Rocky Ridge
On the Banks of the Bayou
Bachelor Girl
Note: Many of the Martha, Charlotte, Caroline, and Rose books have gone out of print and can be difficult to find. Some of them are only available in abridged editions.
For a listing of other books by and about Laura Ingalls Wilder, visit the publisher’s website.
