“Often, if you want to write about women in history,” the novelist Hilary Mantel has said, “you have to distort history to do it, or substitute fantasy for facts; you have to pretend that individual women were more important than they were or that we know more about them than we do.”8 But when it comes to Wilder, we don’t have to pretend.”

“Often, if you want to write about women in history,” the novelist Hilary Mantel has said, “you have to distort history to do it, or substitute fantasy for facts; you have to pretend that individual women were more important than they were or that we know more about them than we do.”8 But when it comes to Wilder, we don’t have to pretend.”

— Caroline Fraser