In 1884 Kate Cleary moved from Chicago to Hubbell, Nebraska, where she bore six children and helped support her family by publishing hundreds of stories, poems, and articles. After her return to Chicago in 1898, Cleary continued to write stories about the American West.

Susanne K. George's absorbing account recovers the life and works of a fascinating western American author. She vividly portrays Cleary's arduous decade and a half on the frontier and her last, tragic years in Chicago, where she died in 1905, at the age of forty-two. George also describes how Cleary's career reflects the difficulties faced by women authors at the end of the nineteenth century and the unique perspectives that such women brought to the art of fiction.

The second part of the book is a collection of Cleary's writings. Some of these eighteen short stories, essays, and sketches are somber, even grim, depictions of homestead and small-town life in Nebraska, with special emphasis placed on the experience's of women. Others are humorous, ironic accounts of life on the western frontier. Also included is a sampling of Cleary's verse.