The U.P. Trail [Hardcover]

Zane Grey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 1421808951 | ISBN-13: 978-1421808956

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - In the early sixties a trail led from the broad Missouri, swirling yellow and turgid between its green-groved borders, for miles and miles out upon the grassy Nebraska plains, turning westward over the undulating prairie, with its swales and billows and long, winding lines of cottonwoods, to a slow, vast heave of rising ground - Wyoming - where the herds of buffalo grazed and the wolf was lord and the camp-fire of the trapper sent up its curling blue smoke from beside some lonely stream; on and on over the barren lands of eternal monotony, all so gray and wide and solemn and silent under the endless sky; on, ever on, up to the bleak, black hills and into the waterless gullies and through the rocky gorges where the deer browsed and the savage lurked; then slowly rising to the pass between the great bold peaks, and across the windy uplands into Utah, with its verdant valleys, green as emeralds, and its haze-filled canons and wonderful wind-worn cliffs and walls, and its pale salt lakes, veiled in the shadows of stark and lofty rocks, dim, lilac-colored, austere, and isolated; ever onward across Nevada, and ever westward, up from desert to mountain, up into California, where the white streams rushed and roared and the stately pines towered, and seen from craggy heights, deep down, the little blue lakes gleamed like gems; finally sloping to the great descent, where the mountain world ceased and where, out beyond the golden land, asleep and peaceful, stretched the illimitable Pacific, vague and grand beneath the setting sun.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421808951
• ISBN-13: 978-1421808956
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,436,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Drama, power, passion: a great novel of the American West, June 19, 2000

By 

Robin P. Flynn - See all my reviews

This review is from: U.P. Trail: A Novel (Hardcover)

I started reading Zane Grey's novels about 15 years ago, when a great-uncle told me of the times, as a youth in the 1920s, he had read Grey's novels on cold nights in front of a fire. It must be close to a decade ago when I first read this title, and I can't help but re-read it every few years. It infuses me with wonder and awe every time.

I knew enough about Grey's novels, by the time I read this one, to know that Riders of the Purple Sage was considered his best. But when I got to the end of The U P Trail, I said to myself, "This is the greatest book I have ever read." This novel, which is focused upon the construction of the Union-Pacific Railroad, has something incredibly passionate and elemental about it that not only elevates it above Grey's other numerous titles, including Riders, but makes it a giant in its genre. Grey himself says in his dedication that "it is the book for which I have written all the others."

The book's scope is akin to a giant mirror being held up to reflect, in one grand and allegorical image, the breadth of the human experience in the building of the American West, and the destruction of its frontier culture. It's a tale of heroism, virtue, sacrifice, greed, personal ruin, redemption, betrayal, saintliness, violence, bigotry, lust, depravity, nobility, and so many other aspects of human nature it's hard to list them all here. It is filled with unforgettable characters who represent every social group involved with both the building of the railroad itself, and the white man's ambition to expand the nation to the Pacific coast. Some of the incidents and moments created by Grey will remain with readers long after they have finished the book, if not forever. And central to it all is the tortured story of the lovers Neale and Allie.

As to drawbacks: modern readers may struggle, in places, with the novel's tone and language. The dialogue of its characters sometimes contains the vernacular and political perspective of the era in which the book was written, and held up to modern standards it could occasionally be labeled politically incorrect. Readers may also have trouble accepting the extra-innocent, almost saintly Allie, and the numerous occasions in which her virtue is preserved against all odds.

Generally, though, I believe that the power and beauty of the book will be the primary impression left with those who read it. It should not be missed by anyone who is a Zane Grey fan OR a fan of historical fiction pertaining to the American West. It's a great view of the legacy in which all Americans live today.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zane Grey, The U. P. Trai, August 22, 2011

By 

Fred Coffman "fredt" (Grantsville Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The U. P. Trail (Kindle Edition)

I have read Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Louis L'Amour and many other modern and classic authors. I am disabled and read a lot all my life and when disabled for 20 years or more. I enjoy all fiction and Historical, and Zane Grey has written some of the best all around fiction that I have read. He gets tedious at times describing the terrain as did L'Amour, but the meat is worth the gristle. He tells a hell of a story that you can't put down any more than the latest Stephen King thriller. It is free and worth what King and Koontz get for theirs. Try it, you will love it. Fredt

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The single greatest western epic ever written., June 19, 2002

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The U. P. Trail (Paperback)

Without doubt, this is the single greatest western novel that I have ever read. It was a gift given to me as a boy, and I have reread it periodically ever since.

This is a magnificant epic of a novel in a single volume. The collossal enterprise of building the first transcontinental railroad from start to finish connects everything, but is really about Neale's love for Allie Lee- and everything he and their friends go through to rescue her. I know that sounds more like a romance novel than it does a western, but, trust me, this is THE western. You actually care about the many skillfully drawn characters- and it hits you hard when they die in heroic sacrifice. I know that some readers will see the characters as western charactatures and stereotypes, but that is only because Hollywood later overused them- the book came first.

By the way, Larry Red King's rescue of Allie Lee from Belle's "Dance Hall" is still the greatest single scene in any western novel, or film, as far as I am concerned.

Oh yeah, not all the language is "politically correct" these days. That's because the men who built this nation weren't politically correct- empire builders never are.

One more thing, the hero of this novel is an engineer, a civil engineer, and a great role model. At least to me, he was.