Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains

Description

Isabella L. Bird was an English writer most notable for her travels around the world. One of her most popular books is “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains”, in which she accounts her travels in the then-unexplored terrain in the Rocky Mountains.

Bird was born to an English clergyman in Yorkshire. She would pick up the passion for studying flora as well as for reading early on. She struggled with illnesses since childhood, and at the advice of the doctor for an open-life, she started traveling when she was in her 40s. After seeing Australia and Hawaii, she decided to go “in search for health” in the Rocky Mountains in 1873. She obtained practical outfit for riding and started her trip in Colorado, the newest US state at the time.

During her travels, she met miners, huntsmen and mountain people. She struggled against the cold, the harsh conditions and the perils of the road. She started sending letters to her sister Henrietta, letters which would get published in 1879 in the novel “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains”.

In this novel, Bird describes the beautiful scenery and serenity of the mountains, bringing vivid images of majestic mountains, lonely trails and perilous encounters with bears, wolves, pumas and snakes. During her travels, she also met the outlaw Jim Nugent, nicknamed “Rocky Mountain Jim”. He was as rough as mountain men get, with just one eye and a love of violence as well as poetry. Bird would write in her letters that he was a man who could be loved by women but to whom no sane lady would get married.

While she left the Rockies after one year of adventuring, her vivid stories and beautifully crafted portraits made “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains” one of the most popular novels concerning the American Wild West.
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