Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867. Wilder is best known for the Little House on the Prairie series, nine books published between 1932 and 1971 in which she tells a fictionalized version of her childhood life.

When Wilder was a child, her family moved frequently throughout what was then the western United States. They lived at various times in Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota. The family settled in South Dakota when Wilder was twelve, and her parents would live there for the rest of their lives.

At the age of 16, Wilder began teaching in local one-room schools, continuing her own education in between jobs. She did not enjoy the work, but there weren't many jobs available to young women at the time, and she felt the need to contribute financially to her family. She gave up teaching after her marriage to Almanzo Wilder in 1885. One of the Little House books, Farmer Boy (e-book, e-audio, print, audio) tells the story of Almanzo's childhood, instead of Laura's own life.

The early years of the Wilders' marriage were difficult, marked by a variety of accidents, financial struggles, and medical problems. After a bout of diphtheria, Almanzo used a cane for the rest of his life. Their infant son died after only twelve days; a series of fires destroyed their barn and their house, and their farm struggled financially during several years of drought. As Wilder had done in her childhood, she and Almanzo spent several years moving frequently – some time with Almanzo's parents in Minnesota; a brief stay in Florida, hoping that the climate would be good for his health – before settling in Missouri in 1894.

It was there that Wilder began her writing career, as a columnist for the Missouri Ruralist newspaper. In "As a Farm Woman Thinks," Wilder wrote about her family, world events, and the changing place of women in modern society. Her columns are gathered in Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection (e-book).

In the 1920s, Wilder began working on a memoir, to be called Prairie Girl. Her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, had become a successful novelist and freelance magazine writer, so Wilder asked her for advice and help in publishing the book. On the advice of Lane and the publishers she consulted, Wilder expanded the first few chapters to book length, thinking that a series might be possible, and re-wrote the book for children. The book, now called Little House in the Big Woods (e-book, e-audio, print, audio) was published in 1932.

The exact nature of Rose Wilder Lane's contribution to the series has long been controversial. Wilder and Lane both said that the daughter offered nothing more than advice and mild editing; some critics believe that Lane did much more re-writing of Wilder's rough drafts. In Libertarians on the Prairie (e-book), Christine Woodside makes the case that Lane shaped her mother's writing in accordance with Lane's own political views, as libertarian arguments against the New Deal politics of Franklin Roosevelt.

The last of the original Little House series, These Happy Golden Years (e-book, e-audio, print, audio), was published in 1943. A ninth book, The First Four Years (e-book, e-audio, print, audio), was discovered after Wilder's death in 1968, and published in 1971.

Before her death, Wilder was honored by the American Library Association in 1954 with the creation of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, a lifetime achievement award for accomplishment in children's literature.

The Little House books have remained continuously in print since their initial publication, and they remain popular today. They received an extra burst of attention in 1974 when they were adapted into the TV series Little House on the Prairie, which ran until 1983. Some of the actors from that series have written about their experiences, including Melissa Sue Anderson, who played Laura's older sister Mary, in The Way I See It (e-book, print); and Alison Arngrim, who played Laura's childhood nemesis, Nellie Oleson, in Confessions of a Prairie Bitch (e-book, print).

Caroline Fraser's Prairie Fires (e-book, print) is a comprehensive biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wilder's own view of much of her life can be found in Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder (e-book, e-audio, print).

In addition to the books specifically mentioned above, the Little House series includes Little House on the Prairie (e-book, e-audio, print), On the Banks of Plum Creek (e-book, e-audio, print, audio), By the Shores of Silver Lake (e-book, e-audio, print, audio), The Long Winter (e-book, e-audio, print, audio), and Little Town on the Prairie (e-book, e-audio, print, audio).

Also This Week

• February 8, 1820: William Tecumseh Sherman was born. Sherman was a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was a gifted military strategist and a believer in utterly destroying the enemy. After capturing Atlanta in November 1864, he led his troops on a month-long march to Savannah. During this "march to the sea," Sherman's troops seized or destroyed crops, burned buildings, and severely damaged bridges and railroad lines. Noah Andre Trudeau focuses on Sherman's March in Southern Storm (e-book, e-audio, print); James Lee McDonough's William Tecumshe Sherman (e-book, e-audio, print, audio) is a more comprehensive biography.
• February 6, 1899: Ramon Novarro was born. Novarro began his film career in silent films in 1917. By the mid-1920s, he was a popular leading man, usually in stereotypical "Latin lover" roles. After the 1926 death of Rudolph Valentino, Novarro was Hollywood's most successful Latin actor. He made a reasonably successful transition from the silent era to sound films, but acted only occasionally after MGM chose not to renew his contract in 1935. His final film was the 1960 Western Heller in Pink Tights, available on DVD. Novarro died in 1968, murdered by two male prostitutes who mistakenly believed there was a large amount of money hidden in his home. Beyond Paradise, by Andre Soares, is a comprehensive biography (e-book, print).
• February 8, 1932: John Williams was born. Williams is a composer of film scores and concert music. His first feature film score was for the 1958 hot-rod movie Daddy-O; the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of that movie is available for streaming. Williams is best known for his scoring of the Star Wars movies, and for his long partnership with director Steven Spielberg. Soundtracks to many of Williams' movies are available for streaming. For a sampling of his non-film work, try his flute and violin concertos.
• February 9 is National Pizza Day. People have been putting other ingredients on top of bread at least since the ancient Greeks and Roman – there's a reference to a pizza-like dish in The Aeneid – but the modern pizza was created in Naples sometime during the late 18th century. About a hundred years later, Italian immigrants brought the dish to the United States, and the first pizzeria opened in New York in 1905. Pizza exploded in popularity after World War II, when veterans of the war in Italy returned home with a taste for Italian food. Today, it's estimated that one of every eight Americans eats pizza on any given day. With that kind of popularity, it's not surprising that you can find a wide variety of pizza cookbooks, either as e-books or in print.