In 1846, a young man of privilege left his comfortable Boston home to embark on a strenuous overland journey to the untamed West. This timeless account of Parkman's travels and travails provides an expressive portrait of the rough frontiersmen, immigrants, and Native Americans he encounters, set against the splendor of the unspoiled wilderness. While Parkman's patrician air and unabashed racism sometimes jolt the modern reader, this remains a colorful classic by one of the 19th century's most prominent narrative historians. 'The publication of The Oregon Trail in 1849 launched Parkman on his career as a storyteller without peer in American letters . . . It is the picturesqueness, the racy vigor, the poetic eloquence, the youthful excitement, that give The Oregon Trail its enduring appeal, recreating for us, as perhaps does no other book in our literature, the wonder and beauty of life in a new world that is now old and but a memory.