Mary Austin, Cactus Thorn

Verna Kale (Penn State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1988

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Because of its rejection of social conventions and its violent conclusion, Mary Austin’s Cactus Thorn written around 1927, did not see publication until 1988. Its publication was part of the movement during the latter decades of the twentieth century to recover forgotten or suppressed texts by female authors. Its plot and themes place it within what Elaine Showalter calls the “feminist” phase of women’s writing, in which female authors, tired of conforming to male standards of artistic production, invent heroines who suffer under the domineering actions of male characters.

The novella opens at a remote California depot where Grant Arliss, a famous New York progressive, is waiting for a train. The politician (probably modeled after Lincoln Steffens) has come to the desert to figure

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1514 words

Citation: Kale, Verna. "Cactus Thorn". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 October 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6198, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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