The Great Valley was published by Macmillan in 1916. The collection focuses on the geography and history of the Mississippi and Illinois valleys — the landscape Masters knew most intimately and which provided the setting for Spoon River Anthology. The poems are more descriptive and celebratory than satirical: Masters writes about rivers, prairies, seasons, and the physical beauty of the Midwest with genuine feeling.
The historical poems trace the settlement of the valley from Native American habitation through French exploration, American migration, and the transformation of wilderness into farmland. Masters was conscious of living in a landscape layered with history, and several poems attempt to recover earlier presences — Native peoples, French voyageurs, early settlers — from beneath the surface of the modern agricultural landscape.
The nature poetry is Masters at his most lyric: descriptions of the Illinois River, of spring on the prairies, of autumn colors in the hardwood forests, written with sensory precision and genuine love for the physical world. These poems reveal a different Masters from the bitter social critic of Spoon River — a man who found solace and beauty in the natural landscape even as he exposed the ugliness of the human communities built upon it.
The collection was published in the same year as Songs and Satires, which raised questions about whether Masters was publishing too rapidly for quality. Critics generally preferred Songs and Satires for its range and energy, but The Great Valley has its own quieter virtues.
Collecting The Great Valley
First edition (Macmillan, New York, 1916): Cloth binding.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $20–$50
- Very good: $8–$20