Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer [Hardcover]

Bill Gifford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2007

For decades after his death in 1789, John Ledyard was celebrated as the greatest explorer America had ever produced. A veteran of Captain Cook’s final voyage, he walked across nearly all of Russia and suggested to his friend Thomas Jefferson that traversing the American continent was feasible—inspiring the Lewis and Clark expedition. When he died he was preparing to venture into Africa. Once as famous as the Founding Fathers whom he had befriended and beguiled, the “American traveler,” as Ledyard was called, fell into obscurity over the years, reduced to becoming a foot­noted reference in Moby Dick.
 

Bill Gifford reenacted Ledyard’s 1773 escape from Dartmouth College in a canoe and followed Ledyard’s trail down the length of the Lena River in Siberia. In Ledyard he reveals the man in the legend, bringing back an American original and giving us a story that until now has not been fully told.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It's easy to see why the once famous 18th-century explorer John Ledyard lapsed into obscurity. Ledyard's claim to fame was his presence on Captain Cook's ill-fated final voyage to Hawaii, about which he wrote a partly plagiarized, sometimes unreliable but widely read 1783 book. Aside from that, there were unsuccessful stabs at the ministry and the fur trade, and his own fizzled journeys of exploration: an attempted trek across Siberia and North America ended when he was expelled from Russia, and his death in Cairo aborted a planned expedition across Africa. Journalist Gifford struggles to give Ledyard's feckless life a compelling arc. He reconstructs Ledyard's travels, supplementing them with observations from his own voyage on a modern replica of Cook's HMS Endeavour and trip through Siberia. And he highlights Ledyard's alleged charisma as a charming raconteur and ladies' man (attested by many episodes of venereal disease); a premature multiculturalist in sympathy with indigenous peoples; an inveterate mooch who financed long journeys from the generosity of bemused hosts; an "eternal adolescent," prototype of romantic American wanderers from Huck Finn to Dean Moriarty. Gifford's biography has plenty of engaging travelogue, but his claims for the importance of this "first modern American" give him an ambitious destination that he never quite reaches. Photos. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

John Ledyard, a renowned traveler and explorer, died in 1789, and a biography written in 1828 placed him in the pantheon of American heroes. Ledyard took part in three expeditions: Captain Cook's voyage to the Pacific, an expedition across North America that was later completed by Lewis and Clark, and the exploration of inner Africa led by the Scottish explorer Mungo Park. Ledyard left a handful of letters and a few scattered journals, most of which were expurgated by his relatives; others have been lost. "Over a period of four years," Gifford writes, "I pursued Ledyard from the Connecticut River to the North Atlantic Ocean, from the libraries of New England to the archives of Britain, and from the streets of Paris to Siberia." Gifford describes him as a complicated man--idealistic and mercenary, restless and lazy, chivalrous and uncelibate, and having a history of tantrums and fistfights. Gifford contends that Ledyard's life was a series of self-reinventions, and this rich and immensely detailed biography brings this obscure explorer to life. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (February 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151012180
• ISBN-13: 978-0151012183
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,072,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS IS ONE YOU WILL BE HAPPY YOU READ. VERY WELL WRITTEN!, February 19, 2008

By 

D. Blankenship (The Ozarks) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer (Hardcover)

This was another of those works that I found difficult to put down once I began reading the first page. I have always been aware of John Ledyard, having stumbled across is name in other works, but actually knew little of him or his exploits. This work changed that.

As the author so well points out, not many have heard the name John Ledyard recently. As a bit of a test, I asked three advanced high school history classes if anyone could give me an idea of who he was and what he did. Not one answer did I get. What a pity. The young Ledyard, shortly after dropping out of Dartmouth (have you ever noticed how many great men of note have dropped from Dartmouth and gone ahead and led quite interesting lives?), and began his restless wondering that did not cease until his death at the early age of 37 in a sort of pest hole in Cairo, Egypt, from an apparent over zealous self-medication overdose of one of those medications which were more poison than anything. In his years of wondering that he did, he was on the crew, acting as a Royal Marine, of Captain Cooks' third voyage. He drifted from the United States to Europe and then travel well into Siberia, alone, until he was arrested as a spy by the agents of Catherine the Great. His plans were to take a trading ship, sail to the North American Continent and walk from the west coast to the east, doing what Lewis and Clark did about fifteen years later, but going in the opposite direction and completely alone with no support staff what-so-ever. Did I mention that Ledyard was a bit of a dreamer? He was on his way to explore Africa, again alone, when he met his untimely death. The fact that Ledyard failed to complete most, if not all of his goals, has cast a bit of a shadow over his accomplishments over the years, which is a pity, because for sheer human effort, he did accomplish more than most. He certainly inspired many explorers of the next generation and beyond. Keep in mind that through all of his travel, he was all most completely without funds, being on the edge of complete poverty to the point of starvation many times.

Bill Gifford has done a wonderful job with this one and given us another great popular history which is quite readable and insightful. This cannot have been an easy task as most of the needed documentation concerning Ledyard has long been lost, destroyed or completely changed and altered by his contemporaries and family. Much like Sir. Richard Burton's wife, it seems his family was not all that thrilled about some of the things he addressed in his letters. A pity, but this was rather common practice in that day and time. The author followed the path Ledyard took across Siberia, actually spent times sailing on a reproduction of Cooks Ship and has explored much of the New England country side where Ledyard got his start. His writing style is quite smooth and each page is a wealth of information. In this case I have to admire the author almost as much as Ledyard, scraping together all these facts could not have been an easy job. The author has also given us a very nice picture of what life was like in those times and this is always interesting. This is not a scholarly work, although the research is good, and I don't feel it was intended to be. It is a very detailed and readable popular biography about a little known, but very interesting character out of our history. I felt much richer for having read it. Thank you Mr. Gifford!

I do highly recommend this one.

Don Blankenship

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rediscovering an American Explorer, March 3, 2007

By 

Steve Ruskin (Colorado, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer (Hardcover)

John Ledyard was one of the most extraordinary 18th-century Americans. He was an adventurer who sailed with Captain Cook (and saw him killed in Hawaii), who made an initial attempt to explore the interior of North America (15 years before Lewis and Clark), and who also attempted to explore the interior of Africa--then a giant empty spot on most maps. He was also a picaresque: he lived by his wits and his fists, he womanized, he spied for Thomas Jefferson, and he had powerful connections in both Europe and America. He is also, as author Bill Gifford points out, largely unknown today. When Ledyard died in 1789 his death was lamented in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Gifford's `Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer' attempts to resurrect him.

Gifford does a good job of making the case that Ledyard was the first American explorer (at least of any modern significance). Ledyard was lucky (and gutsy) enough to get involved in some of the numerous European scientific expeditions begun in earnest in the late 1700s, and who reported back with his uniquely American perspective. (Gifford even spends time sailing aboard the 'Endeavour'--a replica of Cook's 'Resolution'--to give his readers a feel for what Ledyard had experienced.) But Gifford also suggests that Ledyard was the "first modern American," by which he means Ledyard was the first to look beyond the small world of the American colonies, and even to adopt "modern" views (e.g., that unchristian "savages" on pacific islands were not the natural inferiors of Europeans). On this count, Gifford is perhaps reaching too far. Certainly Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were acutely aware that there was a world beyond America's shores, and there were others at the time who had "modern" views of the equality of non-Europeans.

Nevertheless this is a fine biography, well written and worth reading for those who want to rediscover one of the most traveled and worldly Americans in the early history of the United States.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great account of an amazing life, March 28, 2007

By 

Jedd Gould (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer (Hardcover)

This is a great account of the life of a very interesting character. As an avid follower of the adventure/explorer genre, I found this account of Ledyard to rank among the best. What makes this book so compelling is the work the author did in retracing Ledyard's steps, a technique which breathes life into the story, making it much more interesting than a straight historical account.

Don't let the picture on the cover of Ledyard in 18th century formal wear fool you, this guy was as rugged, and at times crazy, as anyone you will find in a Krakauer book.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who marvels at the exploits of the early explorers or who wonders what would compel someone to want to walk across a continent.