So Big

This is the famous story of Selina, who taught school in a community of hard working farmers and thrifty wives—and found beauty in cabbages! This is the story of her life and of that of her son through all the years of hardships during which she retained her gay, unconquerable spirit. It is a novel of power, delicacy, and great understanding. 

"Miss Ferber's . . . vocabulary is rich and vital; she sees material objects with a penetrating and delightful vision; she has portrayed aspects of Chicago more vividly and with greater distinction than any writer I know; she knows the history of the development of Chicago in the industrial age and she is able to convey in a few words the import of that development; she can describe . . . debutantes, shop girls and stenographers, tell you how they dress, how they talk, what their working philosophy is, with illuminating flashes." — Burton Rascoe.

Winner of the 1924 Pulitzer Prize, So Big is widely regarded as Edna Ferber's crowning achievement. A rollicking panorama of Chicago's high and low life, this stunning novel follows the travails of gambler's daughter Selina Peake DeJong as she struggles to maintain her dignity, her family, and her sanity in the face of monumental challenges. This is the stunning and unforgettable “novel to read and to remember” by an author who “critics of the 1920s and 1930s did not hesitate to call the greatest American woman novelist of her day” (New York Times)