The Friday 56: 'Sacajawea'

Hello, fellow Friday 56ers! 

For this week's Friday 56 pick, hosted by My Head is Full of Books, I am featuring the 1984 revised edition of the massive historical fiction novel Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo. I found this book yesterday at a thrift store for just ten cents. I’m not sure when I’ll start reading it, but it will go into my TBR pile. The paperback edition is 1,408 pages long, including the notes and bibliography sections.

Now, here’s a preview from page 56:

"We are as ants in the field," Pine Woman sighed, smoothing her dirty tunic over her stomach.

— Waldo, Anna Lee. Sacajawea, Avon, 1984, p. 56.

Anna Lee Waldo, who is still alive at age 101, spent 10 years researching and writing Sacajawea, which was first published by Avon Books in 1979. Plagiarism accusations arose in 1981 when author Benjamin Capps sued both Avon and Waldo for copyright infringement, claiming that she had plagiarized from four of his books. Other authors, such as Charles McNichol, Frank Waters, Vardis Fisher, and Frederick Manfred, were also claimed to have been plagiarized. Waldo explained that her original reference marks were removed from the manuscript before publication—whether that statement was true is still up for debate. A settlement was reached in June 1983, and Capps was rewarded fifteen percent of the novel's royalties.

A revised edition of the novel was published in May 1984, which included significant changes to the original text, in-line citations, and the redaction of an entire chapter. An eBook edition, which features additional revisions to the text, was published by HarperCollins in 2010.

What are everyone's opinions on Anna Lee Waldo? Did she plagiarize other authors, or did she use their works as resources for her novel? Either way, I’m planning to read Sacajawea when I have the time. Trivia: The front cover of the 1984 edition reads, "The 1,000,000-copy American bestseller, 8 months on the New York Times list!"

〜B.J. Burgess