Edna Ferber

Fanny Herself (1917) is a novel by Edna Ferber. Inspired by her experience as a young Jewish woman from the Midwest, Fanny Herself is the story of a young woman who recognizes the unhappiness in her life and decides to risk it all for something better. Lighthearted in nature, yet serious in its ideals, Ferber's novel recalls the best of Fitzgerald in its unswerving commitment to humanity in all its beauty and heartbreak. "You could not have lived...

This 1912 collection of twelve short stories is notable for its refusal to provide happily-ever-after endings. Instead, Ferber focuses on the everyday hardships and triumphs of her characters, mainly shopgirls, secretaries, and other working women. Included are "The Frog and the Puddle," "The Man Who Came Back," and "The Homely Heroine."

Published to unprecedented literary acclaim in 1924, the Pulitzer-winning novel So Big established Edna Ferber as one of the twentieth century's major American storytellers. The enthralling and compellingly readable novel recounts a redoubtable woman's efforts to create an authentic version of the American dream for herself and her son, nicknamed "So Big," by moving up without selling out. Today, So Big can find a new audience among readers who care...

The novel that inspired the Broadway classic-a saga of romance, revenge, and a riverboat theater troupe. Spanning four decades and three generations, and journeying from the post—Civil War South to Chicago to New York, Show Boat has been adapted for radio, stage, and screen, becoming a landmark of American culture. The bestseller by Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber follows a cast of characters who live and work aboard a riverboat, traveling in...

Bick Benedict, his society-gilded wife and three generations of land-rich Texas sons and daughters love, swagger, connive and clash in a monumental drama of family strife, racial bigotry and conflict between cattle barons and newly-rich oil tycoons.

Show boat: When Julie La Verne and her husband Steve Baker are forced to leave the showboat Cotton Blossom, they are replaced by the Captain's daughter, Magnolia, and Gaylord Revenal, a notorious gambler. Magnolia and Ravenal fall in love, marry, leave the boat and move to Chicago. They live off Ravenal's earnings from gambling. After they go broke, Gaylord feels guilty and leaves Magnolia, not knowing she is pregnant. Annie get your gun: Annie Oakley...