As a historian and as a novelist Mari Sandoz (1896–1966) stands in the front rank of western writers: in the words of John K. Hutchens, "no one in our time wrote better than the late Mari Sandoz did, or with more authority and grace, about as many aspects of the old West." This first full-length biography is particularly concerned to show the relationship between Sandoz's life and experiences and her writing.

Drawing heavily on materials in the Mari Sandoz Collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—correspondence to and from Sandoz, her research notes, and manuscripts—and on interviews with dozens of Sandoz's friends and acquaintances, the author not only establishes the facts of Sandoz's life but confirms her standing as a writer and historian.