Easterners Pretending to be Rangers

Rollins, Alice Wellington

[WOMEN IN THE WEST]. The Story of a Ranch

New York: Cassel, 1885. First Edition. 16mo. [2], 190 pp. Original publisher's brown gilt- and silver embossed decorated cloth, a.e.g. A bright copy in excellent condition, almost flawless. Very good. Item #3312

When does a ranching story have nothing to do with ranching? This book "is without either story or ranch; it is about some dilettantish people who go out to a Kansas sheep farm, talk Chopin, and wash their fingers in finger-bowls" (Dobie, p. 116). Also discussed are various types of silver spoons, cameras, violins, portieres, billiards, Oriental carpets, and so forth.

While unnamed, herein is described the author's own family of "tenderfeet," i.e. Easterners who decide to experience sheep ranching in Kansas on a ten-thousand acre, ten-thousand sheep ranch, "not only twelve miles from a lemon, but a thousand miles from a strawberry" (Wright 4668). A contemporary reviewer describes the narrative as "a true story, the outcome of the author's own experience on a Kansas sheep ranch, and it is as fresh and bracing as a prairie breeze. There is a good deal of information mixed in with picturesque descriptions and the result is a book that will serve the double purpose of entertainment and instructions" (Demorest's Monthly Magazine, "Review of the New Publications," 1885, p. 73).

Rare in such fine condition as here.

Price: $150.00