The Desert and the Sown

Mary Hallock Foote (18470-1938) was an American author and illustrator. She married a mining engineer, Arthur DeWint Foote, and moved to California when he took a job at the New Almaden mine near San Jose. Along the way she wrote stories and novels for publication and illustrated them with her own woodcuts and drawings. She is best known for her stories, in which, as in her drawings, she portrays vividly the rough picturesque life, especially the mining life, of the West. A collection of prints by her is on permanent exhibit at the Boise Public Library. Her works include Led-Horse Claim: A Romance of a Mining Camp (1883), In Exile and Other Stories (1894), Coeur d'Alene (1894), The Prodigal (1900), The Desert and the Sown (1902), A Touch of Sun and Other Stories (1903), Royal Americans (1910) and The Valley Road (1915).