Product Description
"In its simple and disarming style, it is a great piece ofreporting on a rugged frontier."--San Francisco Chronicle"The book is a jewel case of keen perception, social analysis, and masterful description for this era."--Chicago TribuneIn 1873 Isabella Bird embarked on a trip that called for the high level of stamina expected of an explorer or anthropologist. But the middle-aged Englishwoman who toured the Colorado Rockies on horseback--alone, for the most part--was neither of these. Painting an intimate portrait of the "Wild West," she wrote eloquently of flora and fauna, isolated settlers and assorted refugees from civilization, vigilance committees, lynchings, and the crude manners--yet gentle civility--among the men she encountered in the wilderness. A thoughtfully written, captivating narrative that provides a vibrant account of a bygone era and the people that forever changed the face of the American frontier. Unabridged reprint of 1882 edition.
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Customer Reviews (8)

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Way too far fetched...........
Really.....a woman traveling alone for months in the worst weather in the Rocky Mountains without proper gear or clothing.She comes across shady characters and isn't raped, eaten by a bear or killed by another wild animal and doesn't freeze to death!This is supposed to be a true story.....don't think so.

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains -- Astounding Story
This is a 19th century travel tale, full of twists and turns and visceral details of how rough but adventurous life was in the old West. The narrator, Isabella Byrd, is a brilliant writer and seasoned traveler, and tells her story with wit and amazing insight. The character of Jim and their friendship is particularly exciting. I wholeheartedly recommend this story as a good read for anyone who is curious to know what it might have been like to explore the Rockies (and meet its citizens) in the mid or late 1800s. Byrd was a trailblazer, well known in her day as an intrepid Englishwoman who traveled the world and wrote about it, in journals and letters home to her sister. Some of this story is not for the squeamish, but all of it is well worth reading

A lady's life in the Rocky Mountains
Such an amazing woman,What an amazing book, to think that she traveled all by herself in temperatures below zero with only her pony for company.What beautiful prose, its almost poetry.Ms. Bird has an amazing power of description. I have recommended this book to so many of my friends.I am now reading her book 'Among the Tibetans'. that's a joy too.
Spoil yourselves, get reading.

Wonderful American West adventure book - and a lady hero!
This is one great book! Adventure - the wild times in 19th Century Colorado, and it's all told by one heck of a lady!
Men will enjoy the book, but it will be an inspiration to young women today!
I bought a copy years ago - lost it after some time. I HAD to buy another copy for my library! It's that good.
I bought a copy for my grand daughter who is 16... hoping it will inspire her to greater things in life.

A lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Excellent book.I really enjoyed Isabella Birds' story about her travels in the Rocky Mountains during the 1800's.I will read and reread this book.She was a very hardy woman! ... Read more

Product Description

Set in the islands in 1873, is the compelling account of the true life adventures that transformed a quiet English lady into the darling and dashing world traveler Isabella Bird, whose exploits held the world enthralled. She spent six months journeying through the islands, cantering through lush forests and grasslands on spirited ponies, drifting over the rolling blue seas on raffish schooners, and finally making her way to the fiery volcano of Mauna Loa. This is a book of singular charm, guaranteed to produce a thirst for adventure and travel. Here, all the beauties of Hawaii and the island way of life are seen through the eyes of one who is, for the first time, tasting life to the full.

Customer Reviews (1)

wonderful glimpse into hawaiian culture as it was long ago
If you are visiting Hawaii and you are interested in learning more than a guide book can tell you, this book is a must.It is an entertaining and adventurous tale of a daring woman's visit in 1873.It is a long book, butit will give you a much deeper experience of a fascinating land and itspeople. ... Read more

Product Description
A Victorian lady and a bear-wrestling mountain man share adventure in this historically accurate play set in Estes Park, Colorado, in 1873.Isabella Bird became world-renowned for her adventures, and her friendship with Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent has become legend.This play also shows the conniving machinations and fierce struggle to control the land near Rocky Mountain National Park. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A great play that makes the viewer think...
In "Thunder is the Mountain's" Voice," Kiesa Kay creates a bright, electric storm of love and triumph interwoven underneath a wickedly vile plot and cruel antagonists.With "Thunder," which tells thetale of the fair English lady Isabella Bird encountering the ruggedmountainman Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent on her quest to conquer and climb thegreatest midwestern peak of all: Long's Peak, Kay makes each charactergleam with fluidly written language and a very shocking climax. ***** ... Read more

Product Description

This unique photographic record of turn-of -the-century China is filled with typical scenes of Chinese life. Beautiful pictures of shrines, homes, city gates, rivers, and tradesmen appear in the book, allowing readers to voyage into China's past. Explanatory notes accompany each photograph.

Product Description
Award-winning biography of 19th adventure Isabella Bird who visited Colorado, Hawaii and Australia, and gallivanted around Japan, China, Korea, Russia and Tibet writing best-selling books about her travels. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A must read...this is an amazing woman.
Everyone should learn about Isabella Bird's life. She was, (and still is,) hands down, the most amazing traveler of all time. Even though she had trouble with illness and depression, for a woman of that time period to accomplish what she did is nothing short of a miracle. Very motivating. All young girls should be made to read this. It motivates independence.

Great book - so much to admire in this woman!
I loved this book. What a character! Not only didshe travel the world, but she did it with her own money and under her own leadership. Admittedly, she hired lots of support (whole entourages in some cases) butnevertheless, the journies were hers andhers alone. I've done alot oftraveling as a single woman, and even these days it takes some courageandself-reliance. I have much admiration for Isabella Bird, who went to allthese far-flung places before there were all the modern conveniences andattitudes. Phenomenal woman! ... Read more

Product Description
A world traveler, Isabella Bird recorded her 1873 visit to Colorado Territory in her classic travel narrative, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. This work inspired Robert Root's own discovery of Colorado's Front Range following his move from the flatlands of Michigan. In this elegantly written book, Root retraces Bird's three-month journey, seeking to understand what Colorado meant to her--and what it would come to mean for him.

Following Isabella is a work of intersecting histories. Root interweaves an overview of Bird's life and work with regional history, nature writing, and his own travels to produce a uniquely informative and entertaining narrative. He probes Bird's self-transformation as her writing moved from private letters to published books, and also draws on reflections of other authors of her day, including Grace Greenwood and Helen Hunt Jackson.Like Bird, Root experiences his most fulfilling moments in the mountains, climbing formidable Longs Peak, living alone in the cabin of famed editor William Allen White, and wandering wild landscapes.

Through reflections on earlier writers' experiences, and by weighing his own response to them, Root learns not only how to come to Colorado, as visitors so often do, but more important, how to stay. ... Read more

Product Description
Until the middle-aged, unmarried Isabella Bird (1831-1904) left her native Scotland for an independent life of travel, she was debilitated by illness, suffering from "neuralgia, pain in my bones, pricking like pins and needles in my limbs, excruciating nervousness, exhaustion, inflamed eyes, sore throat, swelling of the glands behind each ear, stupidity." Bird was so weak that she required a steel support to hold her head up and spent most of her time confined to bed. Desperate to find a cure, her doctors finally packed her off to the Pacific and Switzerland. Once there, the forty-year-old invalid miraculously recovered, and became determined to seek any adventure that allowed her to see the singular beauty of nature.

In Hawaii, she was the first woman to climb the world's highest volcano; in Perak, she rode elephants through the jungles; in Colorado, she scaled 14,000 foot mountains, spent six months traveling mostly alone on horseback, and fell in love with a one-eyed desperado named Rocky Mountain Jim. But whenever she came home to Scotland, her symptoms returned, making another trip essential. Bird's remarkable journeys took her to the remotest parts of the world and brought her considerable fame. She became the first female Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, advised Prime Minister William Gladstone on the issue of Armenian Christians, and was presented to Queen Victoria in 1893. Her numerous travel writings, including 'The Hawaiian Archipelago,' 'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains,' 'Unbeaten Tracks in Japan,' and 'The Golden Chersonese,' remain popular today.

In this fascinating collection of Bird's previously unpublished letters to her homebound younger sister Henrietta, one experiences her journeys firsthand and gains insight into the ambiguous private life of a woman who often invented her public face. Containing correspondence from her first two grand tours to Australia, Hawaii, and Colorado in 1872-1873, and to Japan, China, Malaya, and the Holy Land in 1878-1879, 'Letters to Henrietta' provides a fresh view of the legendary Victorian traveler. ... Read more

Product Description
This critical study of three intrepid travelers to Southeast Asia –– Bird (1831–1904), Dauthendey (1867–1918), Wu (1904–1992) — combines detailed analysis of travel literature with carefully researched historical background and argues that any travel narrative is inevitably a product of the traveler’s own cultural and social background. Thus travel narrative is never an objective account –– the reader must take into consideration the traveler’s own history. By juxtaposing the views of a Chinese with those of two Western travelers, this book shows that prejudice and racism can exist in both the West and the East.

In choosing a Victorian traveler, a German poet, and a Chinese writer, Ng’s study encompasses a geographical area that includes Britain, Germany, China, as well as Southeast Asia and an historical span from the Victorian era to the twentieth century. Three Exotic Views of Southeast Asia is theoretically informed by postcolonial and poststructural criticism. But it also details particular historical contexts, thus evoking the glamour and magic of traveling in a bygone era.

Apart from an examination of a broad range of literature by, among many others, Henry Mayhew, Somerset Maugham, Thomas Mann, and Ba Jin, this groundbreaking study also discusses architecture, fine arts, philanthropic culture, and the rise of mass tourism. Original translations from the German and the Chinese are by the author. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Plucky pioneer lady
If you have traveled in the Rocky Mountains, you will be impressed with this little English lady who could keep up with the mountain men and ride a horse, or walk with it if the snow got too deep, across the wilds.This collection of letters she wrote to her sister is entertaining and impressive.

very good review
This book arrived in top condition and in time. In a college book store this book cost a lot more, so I am very pleased to be able to buy it from this seller.

descriptive
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the descriptive way the author wrote.I have been through Colorado and have seen the beauty she described.Also enjoyed the story because there wasn't a lot of violence and if there was any sex, it was only in our imagination which is the greatest kind.I was amazed at how the lady rode for miles in rugged wilderness without seeming to get lost.The fact that she could subsist on meager food was also interesting.

Well-written account of an incredible Rocky Mountain experience!
I bought this book while visiting Estes Park, CO...hungry for books about life in the West that may not be so readily available here in NJ.I found it to be one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read!Isabella's descriptions of the Rocky Mountains and the climate through which she travelled are vivid and gripping.But more than that, she gives a detailed and honest account of what life was like for settlers on the frontier.How she managed to ride thru the mountains where the only "trails" were tracks of wagons or animals, when often those were covered with the seemingly constant snow, boggles the mind.Her love for Colorado sings out in every word she writes.I too was deeply touched by its beauty, and hope to return again, this time with an enriched appreciation due to this wonderful recounting of Isabella Bird's journey.

Don't overlook this
For many years I saw this book in National Park bookstores and passed it by thinking it would be an example of the overwritten, rather tedious journals of other Victorian travelers.When I finally found it at a used bookstore and rather reluctantly bought it, I was surprised to find out how exciting and relevant her story was.

Because I live in Colorado, I recoginize and travel through many of the places she describes.Just this weekend as we traveled along Highway 67, my husband and I remarked on the likelihood, that this was the same route she'd taken out of Colorado Springs.

Her accounts lend life to the grey, weatherbeaten cabins, abandoned roads and rusting rails that we see.Even though many parts of Europe and the US were relatively modern at the time of her adventures, it is surprising to read just how primitive and precarious was the life of many Colorado settlers.

Even if you aren't from Colorado, read this book to become aquainted with a Victorian woman who found a way to live life fully.Read it to learn about life in the west.Read it just because it's a good read. ... Read more

Product Description
Isabella Bird, daughter of an Anglican clergyman, defies her family and in the 1870s leaves home at a young age to travel the world alone. Of her adventures, none is more daunting than her determination to be the first woman to climb Long's Peak, the highest point in the Colorado Rockies. Although she is accustomed to hardships, Miss Bird faces undreamed-of obstacles in her Colorado adventure and the one man who can help her gain the summit of the mountain is an outlaw named Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Earl Murray's work is historically correct and well-written
Isabella Bird is awesome!I've read 'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains' and loved it.An amazing book, an amazing woman.What a life she led, what a journey.
I'm now reading Earl Murray's 'In The Arms Of The Sky' a fictional work about Bird's journey to the top of Long's Peak led by Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent.Based on fact this book is an interesting read peppered with period facts extensively researched by Murray.I highly recommend it to those familiar with Bird's trip to Estes Park or anyone who enjoys tales of the long gone pioneer days in Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

Isabelle Bird--a likable character.
Earl Murray of course did a good job in writing an excellent book, again. Since Isabelle Bird, the main character in this book, did a lot of travelling all over, I think a good series on many of her travels would bea great idea. If you're interested in reading about women in the west, thisbook is one to read. I have not yet been disappointed in any of Murray'sbooks. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more