“But best of all, the fascination of the People I’d Like to Know. They pop up now and then in the shifting crowds, and are gone the next moment, leaving behind them a vague regret. Sometimes I call them the People I’d Like to Know and sometimes I call them the People I Know I’d Like, but it means much the same. Their faces flash by in the crowd, and are gone, but I recognize them instantly as belonging to my beloved circle of unknown friends.”

After years of living in boarding houses and working to pay for the care of her mentally ill husband, Dawn O’Hara feels closer to fifty than twenty-eight–and on the edge of a mental breakdown. The stress of her life and the hustle and bustle of the big city send her to the doctor, who advises her to return to her small hometown in Michigan to recuperate. With the help of her devoted sister and a handsome German doctor, Dawn is able to get a job as a newspaper reporter, meet new people, and have a year’s worth of adventure. She is ready to start fresh in the countryside, but with the looming memory of her husband in the hospital, she fears she will never truly be free to love–or to be herself–again.

Edna Ferber’s first novel was inspired by the author’s own time as a reporter in the city and the countryside. Dawn O’Hara: The Girl Who Laughed shows, from the beginning of her career, the heart, humor, and striking insight that would be present in Ferber’s future work.

The basis for the classic film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson, Giant is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber’s sweeping generational tale of power, love, cattle barons, and oil tycoons, set in Texas during the first half of the twentieth century.

When larger-than-life cattle rancher Jordan “Bick” Benedict arrives at the family home of sharp-witted but genteel Virginia socialite Leslie Lynnton to purchase a racehorse, the two are instantly drawn to each other. But for Leslie, falling in love with a Texan was a lot simpler than falling in love with Texas. Upon their arrival at Bick’s ranch, Leslie is confronted not only with the oppressive heat and vastness of Texas but also by the disturbing inequity between runaway riches and the poverty and racism suffered by the Mexican workers on the ranch. Leslie and Bick’s loving union endures against all odds, but a reckoning is coming and a price will have to be paid.

A sensational and enthralling saga, Ferber masterfully captures the essence of Texas with all its wealth and excess, cruelty and prejudice, pride and violence.

A beautifully crafted collection of eight short stories by Edna Ferber

In Gigolo, Edna Ferber delves into the minds of eight diverse characters from all walks and stages of life: a handsome, oft-pursued mechanic who finds himself falling in love; a new widower who moves into the home of his son and daughter-in-law; a wounded pilot who discovers his family fortune has disappeared during the war and is reduced to making a living as a gigolo in Paris; a Broadway comedienne who is forced to reconsider her career options as she approaches the age of forty; an aspirational inventor who gets more than he bargained for when he marries a “home girl” whom he assumed would support his aspirations but ultimately furthers her own; a camping supply clerk who fancies himself a rugged outdoors man when in reality he has never traveled beyond Manhattan; a matriarch who grapples with turning sixty and managing her responsibilities to her grown children; and a young woman from Oklahoma who longs to escape her small town and discovers leaving home is hard to do.

Gigolo is a stirring collection from a bestselling and beloved chronicler of American working people.

Full contents:

“The Afternoon of a Faun””Old Man Minick””Gigolo””Not a Day Over Twenty-One””Home Girl””Ain’t Nature Wonderful!””The Sudden Sixties””If I Should Ever Travel!”

The basis for the classic film starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, Saratoga Trunk is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber’s enthralling saga of love, greed, and power set in New Orleans and Saratoga during the late nineteenth century.

Saratoga Trunk unfolds the story of Clio Dulaine, an ambitious Creole beauty who more than meets her match in Clint Maroon, a handsome Texan with a head for business–and an eye for beautiful young women. Together they do battle with Southern gentry and Eastern society, but in their obsession to acquire all they’ve ever wanted, they fail to realize they already have all they’ll ever need–each other.

A novel by one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished and admired writers, Saratoga Trunk is a lively tale of ambition and love that celebrates the triumph of outsiders against the powerful and corrupt.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber’s greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago.

Hailed as a novel “to read and remember” (New York Times), So Big is the unforgettable story of the indomitable Selina Peake DeJong and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity in the face of a challenging marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood. First published in 1924, So Big is a brilliant literary masterwork from one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished and admired writers, and still resonates today with its unflinching views of poverty, sexism, and the drive for success.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber’s greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago.

Hailed as a novel “to read and remember” (New York Times), So Big is the unforgettable story of the indomitable Selina Peake DeJong and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity in the face of a challenging marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood.

Left an orphan at nineteen years old in the late 1880s, Selina Peake needs to support herself. She becomes a teacher in the farming community of High Prairie, Illinois, and soon marries Pervus DeJong, a farmer. After Pervus’s death, Selina takes over their struggling farm and raises their son, Dirk. Despite their hardships, she retains a deep appreciation for art and beauty and does her best to instill these values in Dirk, but will he recognize his mother’s wisdom before he loses a chance at love?

First published in 1924, So Big is a brilliant literary masterwork from one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished and admired writers, and still resonates today with its unflinching views of poverty, sexism, and the drive for success.

After losing her father and her husband, Selina Peake is left to raise her only son on the farm that was left to her. Dirk Peake, a tenacious boy who grows up to be a successful bond salesman, must come to terms with his own regrets later in life after he decides not to pursue architecture, a passion that both he and his mother shared. This classic novel about family, immigration, and the role of art and culture in society asks an age-old question: Can money really buy happiness?