Since I haven’t read the novel myself yet, I’m just going to include here this wonderful review of it that was posted at amazon.ca, where you can also purchase the book for yourself.
Although she is somewhat neglected today, for more than three decades Edna Ferber was considered one of America’s premiere authors. While her work included short stories and theatre, she was most famous for her novels, most of which focused on strong women coping with errant men in panoramic settings. SHOW BOAT was one of her first great successes. Today the story is better known through its musical theatre incarnation and the two film versions the stage show generated, one in 1936 directed by James Whale and starring Irene Dunne and one in the 1951 directed by George Sidney and starring Katherine Grayson. But while the stage and screen versions have their charms, none really captures the epic nature of Ferber’s novel, which is as much about America as it is about the story of post-Civil War show folk who ply their trade on “The Cotton Blossom”–a floating theatre that travels the nation’s waterways, most particularly the mighty Mississippi.