LAND OF ENCHANTMENT Memoirs of Marian Russell along the Santa Fe Trail [SOLD]

LAND OF ENCHANTMENT Memoirs of Marian Russell along the Santa Fe Trail as dictated to Mrs. Hal Russell

University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque

Originally printed by Branding Iron Press in 1954

Illustrated Facsimile Edition with New Photographs, a New Map, and a New Afterword by Marc Simmons, 1981

Condition: previously owned copy, gently read, cover has water stain on it that you can see in image above.

When it was first published in 1954 Marian Russell’s Land of Enchantment was praised as an outstanding memoir of life on the Santa Fe Trail, and that handsomely printed little volume went out of print almost immediately.  Since then, the book has gained in stature to such an extent that Jack Rittenhouse, in his authoritative guide to the subject, has called Mrs. Russell's book “one of the two best detailed accounts by a woman over the Santa Fe Trail.”

Now readers everywhere can enjoy Mrs. Russell's recollections, for this first reprint of this classic, comes complete with the original editorial material, plus a new useful afterword by Mark Simmons.  And those readers will discover that Mrs. Russell described much more than just life on the Trail.  Indeed, her memoirs cover virtually every aspect of life in the West.  These memoirs reveal a strong, energetic woman whose perceptions of old Santa Fe and pioneer life on the trail paint a vivid picture of the nineteenth-century West.  The unusual and exact details which Marian Russell recalls make her story enthrallingly real.

CONTENTS

Chapter I - The Old Northwest

Chapter II - On the Santa Fe Trail

Chapter III - Life in Santa Fe 1852-1856

Chapter IV - Fort Leavenworth 1856-1860

Chapter V - Back to New Mexico 1860

Chapter VI - Land of Enchantment 1860-1866

Chapter VII - Tecolote Traders 1866-1871 

Chapter VIII - Stonewall Valley Ranch 1871-1936