Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty [Paperback]

W.L Rusho (Author), Vicky Burgess (Author), John Nichols (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1973

Everett Ruess, the young poet and artist who disappeared into the desert canyonlands of Utah in 1934, has become widely known posthumously as the spokesman for the spirit of the high desert. Many have been inspired by his intense search for adventure, leaving behind the amenities of a comfortable life. His search for ultimate beauty and oneness with nature is chronicled in this remarkable collection of letters to family and friends. < /p>

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Everett Ruess, a bold teenage adventurer, artist, and writer - studied and lived with Edward Weston, Maynard Dixon and Dorothea Lange. He traded prints with Ansel Adams. He tramped around the Sierra Nevada, the California coast, and the desert wilderness of the Southwest pursuing his dream of ultimate beauty and oneness with nature. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

Contents Preface Introduction The Beauty and the Tragedy of Everett Ruess The Letters 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 Everett Ruess is Missing, Utah Clues and Frustrations Speculations in Navajoland Where He May Be To the End of the Horizon Afterword Notes Index

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith (September 1, 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879052104
• ISBN-13: 978-0879052102
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unsolved mystery June 16, 2003

By Ronald Scheer

Format:Paperback

This is a hard book to sum up in a few words. Fascinating and compelling, yes; heartbreaking, often; hair-raising sometimes; exasperating, occasionally. Mostly, it is a vivid reminder of what it is to be still very young, naive, and adventuresome. It's also a book that's very hard to put down.

The reader, of course, knows from the start that Everett Ruess disappears at the age of 21 while on a walkabout somewhere near the Colorado River, in the remote 1930s wilderness of southern Utah. Gifted, bright, and almost painfully sensitive, he writes letters home that are sweetly poignant, thoughtful, opinionated, and rapturously descriptive of the natural environment he loves. Starting at the age of 16, while still a high school student in Hollywood, California, he journeys to Carmel, Arizona, and the Sierras. Leaving UCLA after one unhappy semester, he returns to the Four Corners region of Arizona and drifts northward into Utah where he follows the Escalante down to the Colorado and then vanishes.

A lover of classical music, a reader of books, poet, writer, water colorist, and block print maker, he considers himself very much a misfit in a world of conformity, where people live lives of quiet desperation, pursuing material goals that make them unhappy and unfulfilled. Torn between his desire for companionship and his love of wilderness solitude, he appreciates warm and welcoming company wherever he happens upon it, and seeks it out when he can, sometimes introducing himself to established artists, such as photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. During visits to the home of painter Maynard Dixon, in San Francisco, he is befriended and photographed by Dixon's wife, Dorothea Lange. One of these photographs eventually appears in a missing persons report in a publication of the Los Angeles Police Department.

It's easy to go on and on about this book. The letters provide such a rich psychological portrait of this young man, full of interesting contradictions and curious prophecies of his eventual fate. Meanwhile, there is the mystery of his disappearance and the various theories and speculation about what may have happened to him, which are also included by the book's author.

I am happy to recommend this book to anyone interested in the West, stories about coming of age and self-reliance, rhapsodic descriptions of nature, personal adventures, the desert, Native Americans, and unsolved mysteries. As companion volumes, I'd also suggest Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" and Eliot Porter's excellent collection of photographs, "The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado."

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Everett Ruess The Man who inspired my love of the outdoors. May 15, 2000

By Scott Spencer Anderson

Format:Paperback

This is a great book for those who love solitude in the mountains. It speakes of a boy who leaves his family in search of himself and to follow his love of the outdoors and painting. It speakes of his trials and feeeling as he is alone on the trail sometimes with only his mule. The best thing about this book is it is not some persons view on what happened to Everett. But it is Everetts letters to his family and friends. As he talked about his life and what is happening. He talkes of love and beauty. As he travles the mountains of Utah, the vallys of Arizona, the roads of New Maxico, and he speakes of the Majestic beauty of the Ocean of California. He Lived a life most of of just dream of. As people now days we tend to live the lifes of others. But by reading this book it inspired me to live my own life and live it to the fullest and take full advantage of the beauty of nature. Before it is gone. This book is put together very well and it holds your attention as you read. You become Everett. I recomend this book to anyone who has any sort of love for the outdoors and soitude. I promise your love for nature will increase. Scott Spencer Anderson

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book full of passion. August 3, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

The story of Everett Reuss is an exceptional story of a most exceptional individual. Reading his letters one can really feel what it is to be alive. His passion, insight and courage are an inspiration to us all. To live life as Reuss did would be an honour. To escape the world and test one's abilities through one's own self reliance seems to be something of the past. In this media age we cannot fully understand the simplicity that Reuss lived his life. Vagabond for Beauty is an example of that simplicity. Reuss' ever present lust for life is fully evident in all of his letters. Reuss lived his life on the fringe and showed others just how amazing life really can and should be.