Cimarron — Edna Ferber

Description

Yancey Cravat, a flamboyant, larger-than-life frontiersman, and his genteel Southern wife Sabra stake a claim in Oklahoma during the 1889 land rush — building a newspaper and a town from nothing as the frontier, and the Osage nation whose land it once was, are transformed forever.

This is a U.S. public-domain edition (entered the public domain in the United States in 2026, 95 years after first publication). It may still be under copyright in other countries.

Excerpt

ALL the Venables sat at Sunday dinner. All those handsome inbred Venable faces were turned, enthralled, toward Yancey Cravat, who was talking. The combined effect was almost blinding, as of incandescence; but Yancey Cravat was not bedazzled. A sun surrounded by lesser planets, he gave out a radiance so powerful as to dim the luminous circle about him.

Yancey had a disconcerting habit of abruptly concluding a meal—for himself, at least—by throwing down his napkin at the side of his plate, rising, and striding about the room, or even leaving it. It was not deliberate rudeness. He ate little.