The Land of Little Rain: A Quick Read edition

Discover a new way to read classics with Quick Read.
This Quick Read edition includes both the full text and a summary for each chapter.
- Reading time of the complete text: about 3 hours
- Reading time of the summarized text: 13 minutes

"The Land of Little Rain" is a collection of short stories and essays that describe the landscape and inhabitants of the American Southwest. The book was written by Mary Austin and published in 1903. It has been published six times, with the first audiobook edition being released in 2019. The stories and essays are linked by a message of environmental conservation and a philosophy of cultural and sociopolitical regionalism. The book is characterized as both "local color" and non-fiction, scientific writing. The language is elevated and formal but made more conversational with informal colloquial language and jargon of the Southwest. The stories feature the deleterious influences of man on nature, including the wasting of pastures by grazing domesticated herds and the ceaseless mining of resources, which destroy the land, though not irreparably. Austin's work reflects a clear opposition to writers like Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G. D. Roberts. The Land of Little Rain was adapted as an episode of the TV series American Playhouse in 1989.