Laura first began writing her memoir, Pioneer Girl, in 1929 and continued writing through 1930 when she asked her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, for feedback. She then reworked part of Pioneer Girl, which was written for an adult audience, into the children’s book Little House in the Big Woods.
Little House in the Big Woods was published in 1932, when Laura was 65 years old. The book covered Laura’s time with her family in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, outside Pepin, Wisconsin.
Laura continued to write the Little House books through to the publication of These Happy Golden Years in 1943, just over ten years after she published the first book of the series.
The First Four Years is commonly referred to as being the ninth Little House book, but it was not published for the first time until 1971, long after Laura’s death in 1957. It is not known whether this book was ever intended for publication but is believed to have been written around 1940. It’s styling is much different from the rest of the series, as it is written without much dialogue and is much more similar in style to the original Pioneer Girl manuscript.
