Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life by Francis Parkman, Illustrated by Frederic Remington, 1894

Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life. Illustrated by Frederic Remington. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1894. Octavo. Rebound by Bennett in 3/4 crushed leather over marbled boards, ruled in gilt, with raised bands and gilt titles to spine, top edge gilt, and marbled endpapers.

Presented is an 1894 printing of Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life. This book was published in Boston by Little, Brown, and Company, and is expertly illustrated by Frederic Remington. The Oregon Trail is a first-person account of Parkman’s two-month summer trip through what is now Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas. It was initially serialized in twenty-one installments in Knickerbocker's Magazine from 1847 to 1849 and then subsequently published as a book in 1849. The book was one of the most influential narratives of the American frontier, so widely read that it went through six printings within the first ten years of publication. 

Only 23 at the time of his summer expedition, Francis Parkman left St. Louis in April of 1846, traveling along the Oregon Trail. His first stop was the fur trading post of Fort Laramie. Turning south, he followed the eastern edge of the Rockies to the trading post at El Pueblo, on the banks of the Arkansas River, before he returned via the Santa Fe Trail. During his trip, he spent several weeks hunting buffalo and living with the Oglala Sioux, noting their habits and customs. He also met with a number of famous frontiersmen during his expedition, including Jim Beckwourth.  

Equal parts travelog, adventure story, and history, Parkman’s book is celebrated as “the classic account of the emigrant journey to the Rockies” (Grolier, American 58). Rittenhouse notes that “Although generally considered to be only an Oregon Trail item, the last part of this work describes a journey by Parkman down the Arkansas River and along the [Santa Fe Trail] in 1846, during which he met U.S. military units marching west.” 

An incredible and celebrated success, Field exalts, "Mr. Parkman had all the genuine love of adventure of a frontiersman, the taste for the picturesque and romantic of an artist, and the skill in narration of an accomplished raconteur. It is not too high praise of his work to say that his pictures of savage life are not excelled by the narratives which had their birth in the personal experience of Washington Irving, or the imagination of Fenimore Cooper." 

This 1894 printing is collectible for its illustrations by Frederic Remington. As stated in the book’s preface, Remington’s pictures are “as full of truth as of spirit, for they are the work of one who knew the prairies and the mountains before irresistible commonplace had subdued them.” First appearing in the 1892 edition, Remington’s illustrations energized Parkman’s epic tale of exploration, bringing to life the majesty of the great plains and the drama of early western travel. 

Although born, raised, and educated on the East Coast, Frederic Remington (1861-1909) achieved his success as America’s leading illustrator of life on the western frontier. His career took off in the mid-1880s when he began making western illustrations for Harper's Weekly and many other widely-read New York magazines. Accompanying both factual news reports and colorful fictional tales, Remington's pictures delighted and informed an East Coast populace hungry for information of the new frontier. Remington traveled West repeatedly, and greatly admired the rough and intrepid cowboys and soldiers he met there. Remington produced over 3,000-signed works, most of which were illustrations. As he grew older, he turned away from the publishing world and accomplished masterful paintings, drawings, and bronzes.

CONDITION: 

Good condition overall. Rebound by Bennett in 3/4 crushed Moroccan leather over blue marbled boards, ruled in gilt, with raised bands and gilt titles and tooling to the spine. Faint wear and chipping to the edges of boards and marginal toning to text block. Top edge gilt. Marbled endpapers. Interior pages are very healthy, with only little toning. Illustrated throughout by Frederic Remington. 

Dimensions: 8 1/8" H x 5 5/8" x 1 7/8" D

Accompanied by our company's letter of authenticity.