In the 1930s and 1940s, Nancy Hale was a writer of literary best-sellers, beloved by critics, and expected by many to become one of the canonical writers of her era. Her fiction helped to shape the early identity of The New Yorker magazine and established her as an important voice in both the short story and the novel. By her death in 1988, however, all but one of her more than thirty books had gone out of print, and her star had faded into near obscurity.