Fitz Hugh Ludlow burst on the literary scene in 1857 with the unlikely best seller
The Hasheesh Eater
. Written when he was just 20 years old, the book swept him into a career as a prolific novelist, short story author, arts critic, travel writer, journalist and editor. His friends and colleagues ranged from Walt Whitman to Brigham Young to Mark Twain. The material published in Ludlow’s
Collected Works
displays a depth of observation, a breadth of erudition and an appetite for extreme experience applied to the emerging modern American nation.
The Heart of the Continent
, published in 1870, bookended his brief but prolific 13-year career. It is a sweeping treatment of the American West on the cusp of its full settlement and exploitation. His view was up close, gritty and personal. He spent several weeks on The Overland Stagecoach, from Atchison in the Kansas territory to a San Francisco catching its breath just 15 years after Sutter’s Mill. He brought back the first shocking tales of “free love” in the new Mormon Zion of Utah, and equally shocking but more violent views of lynchings, Indian massacres and the Wild West. Ludlow's breadth of interests is in full flower here. He writes with equal sublimeness about nature--especially encountering the majestic Rocky Mountains; the harships and joys of travel; the characters he meets; hunting; food; and an astonishing array of sciences--geology, botany, chemistry, medicine and zoology. Ludlow's traveling companion for this journey is the great American painter Albert Bierstadt, whose sketches illustrate the book. This new edition has been lovingly re-edited and reformatted from the original.