Aldrich’s portrayals of pioneers, farm people, and small town traders—their spirit and enterprise—won the admiration of the nation. Unlike such contemporaries as Sinclair Lewis and
Hamlin Garland, Aldrich saw the better side of Main Street. Honesty, hard work, friendship, and family life are constant themes in her writings.
This second volume of The Collected Short Works brings together over thirty of Aldrich’s short stories and essays published between 1920 and 1954, the year of her death. With
this collection Aldrich’s admirers have ready access to many hard-to-find works. Some of the stories appear here for the first time since their original publication.