Washington Irving: Three Western Narratives (LOA #146): A Tour on the Prairies / Astoria / The Adventures of Captain BonnevilleAmerica’s first internationally acclaimed author, Washington Irving established his fame with tales of the Hudson Valley in the days of Dutch rule, and then spent seventeen years in Europe mining the Old World for stories. When he finally returned to the United States, he embarked on a trilogy of books on the American West that would prove decisive in molding his compatriots’ conception of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest. The Library of America presents this Western trilogy in its third volume of Irving’s work. Irving’s own encounter with the West came in 1832 when he accompanied the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on a month-long journey to what is now eastern Oklahoma. His account of that trip, A Tour on the Prairies (1835), described wild landscape, rugged inhabitants, and dramatic chases and hunts with an eye for romantic sublimity and a keen appreciation of the frontiersman’s “secret of personal freedom.” After the success of his first western book, Irving undertook to write the history of John Jacob Astor’s ultimately failed attempt to establish a fur-trading empire in the Northwest. In Astoria (1836), he created a sweeping epic of exploration, commercial enterprise, and “contest for dominion on the shores of the Pacific,” drawing on Astor’s rich archive of materials and enlivening it with his flair for vigorous storytelling. In The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837), Irving focused on a single memorable figure—an army officer and fur trader who may also have been an American spy tracking British ambitions in the far country—to reveal the flavor of frontier life in the Rockies and beyond. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 7 |
The Pawnee hunting groundsTravelling | 13 |
An Indian agencyRiflemenOsages | 20 |
Trail of the Osage huntersDeparture | 29 |
The honey camp | 38 |
Amusements in the campConsultations | 44 |
Breaking up the encampmentPicturesque | 49 |
CHAPTER XIII | 57 |
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE | 629 |
State of the fur trade of the Rocky Moun | 635 |
Departure from Fort OsageModes | 643 |
Wide prairiesVegetable productions | 650 |
An alarmCrow IndiansTheir appear | 656 |
Blackfeet in the Horse PrairieSearch after | 699 |
A winter camp in the wildernessMedley | 709 |
Story of Kosato the renegade Blackfoot | 719 |
Deer shootingLife on the prairies | 63 |
A sick campThe marchThe disabled | 73 |
A grand prairieCliff CastleBuffalo | 82 |
THE CAMP OF THE WILD HORSE Hunters | 90 |
The alarm camp | 98 |
CHAPTER XXIII | 105 |
Scarcity of breadRencontre with | 109 |
A secret expeditionDeer bleating | 127 |
A hunt for a lost comrade | 141 |
Old Creek encampmentScarcity | 154 |
OR ANECDOTES OF AN ENTERPRIZE | 163 |
INTRODUCTION | 179 |
Rise of the Mackinaw CompanyAttempts | 194 |
A hunt after huntersHungry times | 727 |
Misadventures of Matthieu and | 735 |
Departure from Green River valley | 774 |
Adventures of the party of tenThe | 782 |
A retrograde moveChannel of | 794 |
Creek Grand RondFine pasturesPerplexities | 918 |
Scarcity in the campRefusal of supplies | 928 |
A festive winterConversion of | 935 |
A rendezvous at Wind RiverCam | 944 |
APPENDIX Mr Wyeth and the trade of the Far West 851 | 954 |
Chronology | 959 |
Note on the Texts | 984 |
78 | |
Other editions - View all
Washington Irving: Three Western Narratives (LOA #146): A Tour on the ... Washington Irving No preview available - 2004 |
References to this book
A Picturesque Situation: Mackinac Before Photography, 1615-1860 Brian Leigh Dunnigan No preview available - 2008 |