Her portrayals of pioneers, farm people, small-town residents, their activities, and their relationship with their surroundings won the admiration of the nation. Honest romance, marital
concord, and parental love were her constant themes. She was much more concerned with what kept people together than with what drove them apart. Widowed in 1925 with four children who
relied on her for support, Aldrich knew all too well the tensions between motherhood and working for pay.
Collected Short Works contains twenty-six works written for publication between 1907 and 1919. Aldrich’s admirers now have ready access to works that long ago were relegated
to archives and library stacks. Scholars will appreciate how much of herself Aldrich invested in her fiction and how well she appreciated the changes occurring around her.