The Sound of Mountain Water

The Changing American West

A book of timeless importance about the American West by a National Book Award—and Pulitzer Prize–winning author. The essays collected in this volume encompass memoir, nature  conservation, history, geography, and literature. Delving into the post-World War II boom that brought the Rocky Mountain West—from Montana and Idaho to Utah and Nevada—into the modern age, Stegner's essays explore the essence of the American soul. 

Writtten over a period of thirty-five years by a writer and thinker who will always hold a unique position in modern American letters, The Sound of Mountain Water is a modern American classic.
Introduction

Part I

1  Overture: The Sound of Mountain Water
2  The Rediscovery of America: 1946
3  Packhorse Paradise
4  Navajo Rodeo
5  San Juan and Glen Canyon
6  Glen Canyon Submersus
7  The Land of Enchantment
8  Coda:  Wilderness Letter

Part II

1  At Home in the Fields of the Lord
2  Born a Square
3  History, Myth,a nd the Western Writer
4  On the Writing of History
5  Three Samples:
    a The West Synthetic:  Bret Harte
    b The West Authentic:  Willa Cather
    c The West Emphatic:  Bernard DeVoto
6  The Book and the Great Community
Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) was the author of, among other novels, All the Little Live Things (winner of a Commonwealth Club Gold Medal), Angle of Repose (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and The Spectator Bird (winner of the National Book Award). His nonfiction includes The Sound of Mountain Water, The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard DeVoto, and Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West. Three of his short stories won O. Henry Prizes, and in 1980 he received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for his lifetime literary achievements. View titles by Wallace Stegner

About

A book of timeless importance about the American West by a National Book Award—and Pulitzer Prize–winning author. The essays collected in this volume encompass memoir, nature  conservation, history, geography, and literature. Delving into the post-World War II boom that brought the Rocky Mountain West—from Montana and Idaho to Utah and Nevada—into the modern age, Stegner's essays explore the essence of the American soul. 

Writtten over a period of thirty-five years by a writer and thinker who will always hold a unique position in modern American letters, The Sound of Mountain Water is a modern American classic.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I

1  Overture: The Sound of Mountain Water
2  The Rediscovery of America: 1946
3  Packhorse Paradise
4  Navajo Rodeo
5  San Juan and Glen Canyon
6  Glen Canyon Submersus
7  The Land of Enchantment
8  Coda:  Wilderness Letter

Part II

1  At Home in the Fields of the Lord
2  Born a Square
3  History, Myth,a nd the Western Writer
4  On the Writing of History
5  Three Samples:
    a The West Synthetic:  Bret Harte
    b The West Authentic:  Willa Cather
    c The West Emphatic:  Bernard DeVoto
6  The Book and the Great Community

Author

Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) was the author of, among other novels, All the Little Live Things (winner of a Commonwealth Club Gold Medal), Angle of Repose (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and The Spectator Bird (winner of the National Book Award). His nonfiction includes The Sound of Mountain Water, The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard DeVoto, and Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West. Three of his short stories won O. Henry Prizes, and in 1980 he received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for his lifetime literary achievements. View titles by Wallace Stegner