Other editions of book Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie & Rocky-Mountain Life

The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life (also published as The California & Oregon Trail) is a book written by Francis Parkman. It was originally serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine (1847-49) and subsequently published as a book in 1849. The book is a breezy, first-person account of a 2-month summer tour in 1846 of the U.S. states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas. Parkman was 23 at the time. The heart of the book covers the three weeks Parkman spent hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux. The book was reviewed favorably by Herman Melville, although he complains that it demeaned American Indians and that its title was misleading (the book covers only the first third of the trail).

The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life (also published as The California & Oregon Trail) is a book written by Francis Parkman. It was originally serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine (1847–49) and subsequently published as a book in 1849. The book is a breezy, first-person account of a 2-month summer tour in 1846 of the U.S. states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas. Parkman was 23 at the time. The heart of the book covers the three weeks Parkman spent hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux.The Oregon Trail appeared in 1849, and with its publication Parkman was launched upon his career as a storyteller without peer in American letters. ... It is the picturesqueness, the racy vigor, the poetic elegance, the youthful excitement, that give The Oregon Trail its enduring appeal, recreating for us, as perhaps does no other book in our literature, the wonder and beauty of life in a new world that is now old and but a memory

[This is the Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.] [Read by Robert Morris] This is the classic account of Francis Parkman's rugged trip over the eastern part of the Oregon Trail with his cousin, Quincy Adams Shaw, in the spring and summer of 1846. They left St. Louis by steamboat and arrived in Oregon on horseback, in company with guides and occasional other travelers. They encountered storms, buffalo hunts, and meetings with Indians, soldiers, sportsmen, and emigrants. The Oregon Trail is an eyewitness account of the Mormons and outlaws, trappers and Indians, pioneers and adventurers who struggled to conquer the frontier.

American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life (also published as The California & Oregon Trail) was originally serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine (1847–49) and subsequently published as a book in 1849. The book is a breezy, first-person account of a 2-month summer tour in 1846 of the U.S. states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas. Parkman was 23 at the time. The heart of the book covers the three weeks Parkman spent hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux............... Francis Parkman Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic. Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893. Early life: Parkman was born in Boston, Massachusetts to the Reverend Francis Parkman Sr. (1788–1853), a member of a distinguished Boston family, and Caroline (Hall) Parkman. The senior Parkman was minister of the Unitarian New North Church in Boston from 1813 to 1849. As a young boy, "Frank" Parkman was found to be of poor health, and was sent to live with his maternal grandfather, who owned a 3,000-acre (12 km²) tract of wilderness in nearby Medford, Massachusetts, in the hopes that a more rustic lifestyle would make him more sturdy. In the four years he stayed there, Parkman developed his love of the forests, which would animate his historical research. Indeed, he would later summarize his books as "the history of the American forest." He learned how to sleep and hunt, and could survive in the wilderness like a true pioneer. He later even learned to ride bareback, a skill that would come in handy when he found himself living with the Sioux. Education and career: Parkman enrolled at Harvard College at age 16. In his second year he conceived the plan that would become his life's work. In 1843, at the age of 20, he traveled to Europe for eight months in the fashion of the Grand Tour. Parkman made expeditions through the Alps and the Apennine mountains, climbed Vesuvius, and lived for a time in Rome, where he befriended Passionist monks who tried, unsuccessfully, to convert him to Catholicism. Upon graduation in 1844, he was persuaded to get a law degree, his father hoping such study would rid Parkman of his desire to write his history of the forests. It did no such thing, and after finishing law school Parkman proceeded to fulfill his great plan. His family was somewhat appalled at Parkman's choice of life work, since at the time writing histories of the American wilderness was considered ungentlemanly. Serious historians would study ancient history, or after the fashion of the time, the Spanish Empire. Parkman's works became so well-received that by the end of his lifetime histories of early America had become the fashion. Theodore Roosevelt dedicated his four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889–1896), to Parkman. In 1846, Parkman travelled west on a hunting expedition, where he spent a number of weeks living with the Sioux tribe, at a time when they were struggling with some of the effects of contact with Europeans, such as epidemic disease and alcoholism......

The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life (also published as The California & Oregon Trail) is a book written by Francis Parkman. It was originally serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine (1847–49) and subsequently published as a book in 1849. The book is a breezy, first-person account of a 2 month summer tour in 1846 of the U.S. states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas. Parkman was 23 at the time. The heart of the book covers the three weeks Parkman spent hunting buffalo with a band of Oglala Sioux. The book was reviewed favorably by Herman Melville, although he complains that it demeaned American Indians and that its title was misleading (the book covers only the first third of the trail).

International Collectors Library, Garden City, NY. Leatherette over Boards. No Jacket. Thomas Hart Benton (illustrator). 7¾" - 9¾" tall. No publication date. Dark green covers with (24 K gold) gilt on the front cover, spine, and top page edges. The gilt front cover design by Raphael Palacios is modeled after T. J. Cobden-Sanderson's design of the cover of The Life and Death of Jason, now in the British Museum rare book collection. Silk ribbon marker.

Hear an eye-witness account of one of the grandest adventures in American history. Francis Parkman's journal -- written more than 150 years ago, in 1846 -- captures the color, spirit, and perspective of a Harvard-educated Bostonian traveling in the Rocky Mountains and living among the Dakota Sioux. Parkman's classic narrative traces his 1,700-mile journey, peopled by the traders, woodsmen, trappers, gamblers and Native Americans he encountered. Frank Muller's outstanding reading draws the listener into the drama. Named a 1996 "Best Audio for Memoir/Autobiography" by Publishers Weekly. 4 cassettes.