大草原の小さな家

テレビドラマ『大草原の小さな家』は今年で４０周年なんですね。お父さん役のMichael Landonさんは１９９１年にガンでなくなっていたとは知りませんでした。

Michael Landon's emotional 'Little House' legacy
Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY 2:59 p.m. EDT May 10, 2014

Little House on the Prairie is celebrating its 40th anniversary as the one-time staple of prime-time television that ran from 1974 to 1983.

The television adventures of the 19th-century Ingalls family, based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved book series, is being celebrated with a remastered edition of its first two seasons. The Blu-Ray/DVD package features a tribute to the show's star and director Michael Landon.

Landon starred as young stud 'Little Joe' Cartwright in 427 episodes of Bonanza before ruling the Little House roost as gentle patriarch Charles Ingalls. He died in 1991.

この作品は、オックスフォードやロングマンの学習辞典でも載っています。

Little House on the Prairie
the title of a novel published in 1935 by the US writer Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957), one of the series based on her childhood experiences travelling in the Mid-West. A popular television series (1974–84) was based on the novels.

Little House on the Prairie
a book for children by the US writer Laura Ingalls Wilder, which describes her life as a child in the Midwest in the 19th century, when her family were among the first white people to live there. It is also the name of a popular US television programme of the 1970s, which was based on Wilder's books.

４０周年に合わせたのか知りませんが、原作者Laura Ingalls Wilderの未刊の自伝が注釈付きで発売されたようです。



（トランスクリプト）

60代になってからこの小説シリーズを発表したのも驚きですが、実際の大草原での生活は、飲酒や家庭内暴力などもありもっと過酷なものだったようです。そのあたりのことに触れているのが下記の書評です。

REVIEW: Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiography reveals the rough truth behind 'Little House on the Prairie'
BY NICOLE HENSLEY

The autobiography predates Wilder's "Little House" series with seven novels that depict real moments of Wilder's life, but are mostly "dramatized and made up" with the help of her daughter and editor, Rose Wilder Lane.

Wilder and her daughter simply fabricated characters and events for the drama.

Actress Melissa Sue Anderson, left, who plays Mary for the television series " Little House on the Prairie" is escorted by actor Michael Landon, who plays her father, are shown during the taping of Mary's wedding scene in Los Angeles in 1978.
One such false scene included her father, Charles Ingalls, confronting irate railroad workers with a gun.

But that's nowhere close to the factual liberties the 1974 NBC series starring Michael Landon took with Wilder's literature. Pa was depicted as a clean shaven pioneer with an adopted son.

In truth, "Pa had the ugliest beard," Koupal said.

The TV series also married Mary with another blind man in the town of Walnut Grove which never happened.

Pioneer Girl offers Wilder's story from her own word.

"She transports herself back to the prairie of her youth ... to that place that most people don't live in," Koupal added.

The small South Dakota town of her childhood, De Smet, remains with its loft stores even if it no longer is how Wilder remembered.

WilderにはLaneという娘がいて、彼女が小説の編集などを手伝ったそうです。ただ、実はLaneがゴーストライターではないかという説も根強くあるようで、今回の注釈付きの自伝はその辺りの事情についても考察しているようです。

Review
Laura Ingalls Wilder's annotated autobiography, 'Pioneer Girl,' shows writer's world, growth
By Jim Higgins of the Journal Sentinel

In describing the history of "Pioneer Girl" in her introductory essay, Hill also addresses the complex and much-speculated-about relationship between Wilder and her daughter Rose as writers. William Holtz, author of a biography of Rose, is among those who argue that Rose did so much work on the "Little House" books she can be considered their ghostwriter. Rose was the more experienced writer and editor when her mother began writing her autobiography. Hill writes:

"Lane has been 'rewriting' or editing manuscripts for other writers, including Wilder, for about fifteen years when she took on 'Pioneer Girl.' Furthermore, based on Wilder's notes to Lane in the original 'Pioneer Girl' manuscript, it is clear that Wilder expected her daughter to review and edit it for publication."

However, Hill doesn't reach the same conclusion Holtz did.

Hill describes mother and daughter's editorial back-and-forth in as much detail as the historical record allows. She notes how Rose did a rewrite of a portion of "Pioneer Girl" with a juvenile audience in mind, a text that might be seen as a precursor of the first of Wilder's famed novels, "Little House in the Big Woods." But Wilder took her daughter's unauthorized rewrite, along with suggestions from an editor who wanted more details about the pioneering experience, and wrote the larger "Big Woods" book.