Mary McDougall. Gordon

Although there are many accounts of overland travel to California during the gold rush, the journal of Bernard J. Reid deserves special notice. Bernard Reid was a passenger on the Pioneer Line, the first commercial transportation enterprise to attempt bridging the plains, mountains, and deserts of western America. Soon after the May 1849 departure from Independence, Missouri, pledges of rapid transit and cheerful attention to passenger comforts gave way to the reality. Slow, grueling travel took its toll on both passengers and employees of the Pioneer Line. The trip, promised to require only two months, eventually required 160 days. Many of the travelers died en route from sickness and privation. Reid's description of this ordeal captures the drama of wagon-train travel in the American West. Mary McDougall Gordon's editorial treatment of Reid's journal is superb. She provides introductory and concluding commentary to put the story in context, ample but not excessive explanatory footnoting, a short biographical appendix on people mentioned in the text, and a useful bibliography of related works. Gordon has, in sum, provided a very fine, thoroughly researched model for scholarly editing.… (lisätietoja)