A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (The Western Frontier Library, 14) [Paperback]

Isabella Lucy Bird (Author), Daniel J. Boorstin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004 | Series: Western Frontier Library

In 1872, Isabella Bird, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement. The letters that make up this volume were first published in 1879. They tell of magnificent, unspoiled landscapes and abundant wildlife, of encounters with rattlesnakes, wolves, pumas and grizzly bears, and her reactions to the volatile passions of the miners and pioneer settlers. A classic account of a truly astounding journey.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In 1854, at the age of twenty-two, Isabella Bird left England and began traveling as a cure for her ill health. Over the years she explored Asia, the Sandwich Islands, Hawaii, and both the Eastern and Western United States. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains contains letters written to her sister during her six-month journey through the Colorado Rockies in 1873. Traveling alone, usually on horseback, often with no clear idea of where she will spend the night in what is mostly uninhabited wilderness, she covers over a thousand miles, most of it during the winter months. A well-educated woman who had known a comfortable life, she thinks nothing of herding cattle at a hard gallop, falling through ice, getting lost in snowstorms, and living in a cabin where the temperatures are well below zero and her ink freezes even as she writes. She befriends desperados and climbs 14,000 foot mountains, ready for any adventure that allows her to see the unparalleled beauty of nature. Her rare complaints have more to do with having to ride side-saddle while in town than with the conditions she faces. An awe-inspiring woman, she is also a talented writer who brings to life Colorado of more than one hundred years ago, when today's big cities were only a small collection of frame houses, and while and beautiful areas were still largely untouched. --Erica Bauermeister

About the Author

In 1854 Isabella Bird's doctor recommended the air of America to improve her health. She finally left almost twenty years later first to Australia where her speedy recovery meant she could climb the world's largest volcano at her next stop, Hawaii. In 1873 she set off for the Rocky Mountains. After a brief respite at home she continued on her way to Japan then Malaya, and later to Tibet. She died at home in Scotland in 1904.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd); Revised edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806113286
• ISBN-13: 978-0806113289
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 0.8 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Romance in the Rockies July 27, 2005

By Smallchief VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

"It is hard to recall another woman in any age or country who traveled as widely, saw so much, and who left so perceptive a record of what she saw," says Daniel Boorstin who wrote an introduction to this edition of "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains."

The daughter of a respectable English clergyman, Isabella Bird was a short, dumpy, 41-year old spinster in 1873 when she visited Colorado. She found there a bunch of people she mostly disliked, but a place -- Estes Park -- on which she lavished pages of Wordsworthian nature worship. She climbed Long's Peak -- no small feat of physical endurance -- described Denver, Colorado Springs, and other Colorado cities, and lived briefly the life of a pioneer ranchwoman in a mountain wilderness.

The reader should be aware of a romantic subtext not fully described in "A Lady's Life." Isabella met "Rocky Mountain Jim" Nugent, a famous desperado who she described as an "awful looking a ruffian as one could see." Jim became her guide and companion in Estes Park, but she only hints in her book at a romantic attachment. In letters to her sister in Scotland, she tells much more of the relationship and of Jim's ardour and his marriage proposal. Was she fantasizing? Was Jim, known as a ladies man, putting out a lot of Irish blarney to this less-than-glamorous gentlewoman? Or was his infatuation with her real? The relationship between the two is explored in several biographies of Bird. In any case, Isabella left Jim behind and headed back to Scotland after a couple of months. Jim was killed in a gunfight a few months later by another man Isabella had known. A romantic triangle? Who knows?

With a story like this -- and a backstory of frustated love and gunfights -- "A Ladies Life in the Rocky Mountains" can hardly fail to be fascinating. Boorstin contributes an excellent introduction to this edition; however, an informative annotated and illustrated edition, edited by Ernest S. Bernard, is also available. Isabella Bird was quite a woman.

Smallchief

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Woman's Adventure in the Wild West April 25, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

A must for the reader who is searching for a first hand description of life in the Rocky's in the 1800's. It includes wonderful sketches by the author and great descriptions of characters and adventures in the untamed West. A great book for bedtime and rainy day reading.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific book of courage and adventure June 29, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Isabella Bird's adventures in the 1870's west are amazing. She travels courageously across the Rockies by horseback, alone, as a woman, and dressed in garb which should have resulted in her death from exposure. Yet she is very matter-of-fact about her travels, detailing a vivid life of Western pioneers - their isolation, their poverty, their difficulties as immigrants, in the post-Civil War time period. I'm surprised this didn't make the San Francisco Chronicle's list of best non-fiction books about the West.