A Girl of the Limberlost

About Gene Stratton-Porter

Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924) was an American author photographer and naturalist. Born in Indiana she was raised in a family of eleven children. In 1874 she moved with her parents to Wabash Indiana where her mother would die in 1875. When she wasnt studying literature music and art at school and with tutors Stratton-Porter developed her interest in nature by spending much of her time outdoors. In 1885 after a year-long courtship she became engaged to druggist Charles Dorwin Porter with whom she would have a daughter. She soon grew tired of traditional family life however and dedicated herself to writing by 1895. At their cabin in Indiana she conducted lengthy studies of the natural world focusing on birds and ecology. She published her stories essays and photographs in Outing Metropolitan and Good Housekeeping before embarking on a career as a novelist. Freckles (1904) and A Girl of the Limberlost (1909) were both immediate bestsellers entertaining countless readers with their stories of youth romance and survival. Much of her works fiction and nonfiction are set in Indianas Limberlost Swamp a vital wetland connected to the Wabash River. As the twentieth century progressed the swamp was drained and cultivated as farmland making Stratton-Porters depictions a vital resource for remembering and celebrating the region. Over the past several decades however thousands of acres of the wetland have been restored marking the return of countless species to the Limberlost which for Stratton-Porter was always a word with which to conjure; a spot wherein to revel.