Nella Braddy (1894-1973), a pioneer among female editors, compiled this seven-story collection, and published Masterpieces of Adventure: Stories of Desert Places in 1922. It features seven authors: Edgerton Castle, Stephen Crane, Selma Lagerlöf, Bret Harte, Thomas Hardy, O. Henry, and W. H. Hudson. It's a stellar group.
Braddy went on to write and edit more articles and books, including two more in the Masterpieces of Adventure series; one focused on Helen Keller's breakthrough teacher, Anna Sullivan Macy; and a biography of Rudyard Kipling.
Once inside Stories of Desert Places, though, listeners will soon realize that Braddy treats the idea of “desert” very loosely. Perhaps it's about what's in a protagonist's mind or heart, rather than the actual setting of the story that Braddy felt evoked the idea of “desert.”
It's left to us to find the “desert”-physical or metaphorical-of an eastern European castle on a snowy night, somewhere in the American West, Norway, early day California, a rainy night in England, in Texas near the Rio Grande, and Argentina. In these stories, people strive, often foolishly, and yet they persevere in unexpected ways.
