Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 2 and De Smet's Letters and Sketches,

Smet, Pierre-Jean de, 1801-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
740K words
Chapters
74

Tags

English Originals World History Missionary RecordsTravelogueEpistolary FormSketch Collection19th CenturyAmerican WestWestward ExpansionFrontier LifeLocal Customs

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 2; and De Smet's Letters and Sketches,Author: Smet, Pierre-Jean de, 1801-1873,Language: English, Class: F590.3: United States local history: The West. Trans-Mississippi Region. Great Plains, Release Date: Feb 13, 2013

Editor's review

This volume brings together part 2 of Flagg's The Far West, 1836–1837 and De Smet's Letters and Sketches. A public-domain Project Gutenberg e-book, it falls under the category of American Western local history. Both parts record what the authors saw and heard in the American Far West in the 1830s from a first-hand perspective, combining travel observations with letters and sketches and conveying a strong sense of the period. For readers studying the history of westward expansion, missionary activity, and early frontier narratives, it is a usable primary text that adds detail and a personal voice beyond broad historical accounts. It should be read as a historical source rather than popular narrative, with attention to the authors' standpoints and the limitations of their era; readers are advised to consult maps and a background chronology, read the two parts separately, and begin with the letters before the sketches to follow the narrative thread. Suited to readers with some grounding in reading English historical sources who wish to study selected chapters.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the introductory passages to understand the sources and arrangement of the two parts, then read them section by section.
  2. Read alongside a map of the American West and a chronology of the 1830s, marking place names as you go.
  3. Take separate notes on the letters and the sketches, comparing the two authors' observational perspectives.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74

FAQ

What two parts does this book contain? According to the source, the book contains part 2 of Flagg's The Far West, 1836–1837 and De Smet's Letters and Sketches. Both are records of what was seen and heard in the nineteenth-century American Far West; they differ in format and can be read separately.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? It helps to first grasp the basic context of westward expansion and frontier travel in the 1830s and to have a map of the period at hand. Some familiarity with missionary activity and travel literature will make the observations and judgments in the text easier to understand.
Is this a complete work or an excerpt? Judging by the title, the Flagg portion is explicitly part 2 of The Far West and is therefore an excerpt; the De Smet portion is a collection of letters and sketches. It should not be read as a single author's complete monograph.
What if the English historical sources are difficult to read? Skim the opening of each part, then read closely the passages on topics that interest you and skim the rest. Mark unfamiliar place names and figures and look them up after finishing a section rather than pausing over every sentence, which would hinder overall comprehension.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Smet, Pierre-Jean de, 1801-1873 Author · Belgian · 1801–1873

Smet, Pierre-Jean de (1801–1873) was a Belgian-born American Jesuit missionary who carried out missionary work among Native peoples in North America over many years. Drawing on his experiences in the field, he wrote missionary memoirs that record the living conditions of the communities he encountered and the landscapes of the western regions, leaving first-hand material for later understanding of the nineteenth-century North American West and Native societies. One work by him is held in this collection: part 2 of Flagg's The Far West, 1836–1837, together with De Smet's Letters and Sketches. Composed mainly of letters and notes, it is plain and concrete in style and valuable both as a missionary record and as travel observation. Public information on his early life and education is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.