Lamb in His Bosom - (Modern Southern Classics) by Caroline Miller (Paperback)

About the Book

Richly authentic and lyrically descriptive, "Lamb in His Bosom" pays poignant tribute to a woman's life lived on the line between the nature outside her and the nature within. Married two decades before the Civil War, Cean Smith learns to navigate material and social hardships as she stands witness to cycles of marriage, birth, and death in this transcendent tale of love and loss. "Lamb in His Bosom" received the Pulitzer in 1934.

Book Synopsis

The 1934 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a young newlywed woman struggling with her harsh life in rural, impoverished antebellum Georgia.

"It has a wonderful freshness about it.... A wonderfully large and vital picture." ―The New York Times

Cean and Lonzo are a young couple beginning their married lives two decades before the Civil War in a land where nature is hostile, the seasons dictate the law, and the days are punctuated by the hard work of the land. The couple's only wealth is their hands, their obstinacy, and their love.

By the time Cean is forty-three, she has borne fourteen children; buried five of them and her husband; and survived a civil war, venomous snakebite, ferocious panther attack, and a deadly house fire. Neither life nor the din of history has spared her.

In her lyrical, fascinating story (winner of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Literature), author Caroline Miller explores the struggle and survival of impoverished settlers in pre-Civil War South Georgia. A thought-provoking addition to American, Civil War, and Women's History studies. Available in eBook.

Review Quotes

"It has a wonderful freshness about it; not simply the freshness of a new writer, but the freshness of a new world. . . . A wonderfully large and vital picture." --The New York Times

About the Author

Caroline Miller was born in 1903. After her marriage, she began traveling through rural south Georgia, interviewing the people she met and planning a novel; as she had not attended college, her husband taught her about literature. "He was my college," she said. In 1934, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with Lamb in His Bosom. Her second novel, Lebanon, was published in 1944. Miller passed away in 1992.