UI Press | Edited by Margaret Sandburg | The Poet and the Dream Girl: The Love Letters of Lilian Steichen and Carl Sandburg

The Poet and the Dream Girl

The Love Letters of Lilian Steichen and Carl Sandburg

Awards and Recognition:

Winner of an Outstanding Achievement Award of the Wisconsin Library Association, 1988.

"One may read and appreciate the book for its scholarship and the cultural insights it offers on the pre-World War One era, but I suspect that most readers will delight in the emerging and appealing love story of Carl and Lillian. In our rather nihilistic age, The Poet and the Dream Girl acts as a kind of moral and philosophical tonic, making one believe again in all the possibilities for art, love, and social reform so passionately and beautifully espoused in these pages."--Dan Guillory, Illinois Books

"The two have the heroic vitality of figures in a poem by Whitman. The wholehearted equality that comes rarely in most relationships seems to belong effortlessly to these lovers from the first. And what we feel is not amused, or contemptuous, or annoyed. What we feel is jealous."--Penelope Mesic, Chicago

"The letters of Steichen and Sandburg reveal their deep love for one another as well as their shared dedication to socialism. Most interesting is their very modern aspiration to unite both aspects into a genuine 'personal politics' of daily life. Students of American radical history will achieve rare insight into the arduous routine of the rank-and-file organizer. Scholars of women's history will locate a clearly articulated feminist desire for both intimacy and sexual liberation. Enjoyment is promised to all readers by the elegant prose and moving passages contained in this fine collection."--Mari Jo Buhle, author of Women and American Socialism, 1870-1920

Margaret Sandburg is the editor of Breathing Tokens, a collection of Carl Sandburg's poetry. With George Hendrick she wrote the introduction to the second volume of her father's autobiography, Ever the Winds of Chance.