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Before he became America's foremost landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) was by turns a surveyor, merchant seaman, farmer, magazine publisher, and traveling newspaper correspondent. In 1856–57 he took a saddle trip through Texas to see the country and report on its lands and peoples. His description of the Lone Star State on the eve of the Civil War remains one of the best accounts of the American West ever published. Unvarnished by sentiment or myth making, based on firsthand observations, and backed with statistical research, Olmsted's narrative captures the manners, foods, entertainments, and conversations of the Texans, as well as their housing, agriculture, business, exotic animals, changeable weather, and the pervasive influence of slavery.
Back and forth from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, through San Augustine, Nacogdoches, San Marcos, San Antonio, Neu-Braunfels, Fredericksburg, Lavaca, Indianola, Goliad, Castroville, La Grange, Houston, Harrisburg, and Beaumont, Olmsted rode and questioned and listened and reported. Texas was then already a multiethnic and multiracial state, where Americans, Germans, Mexicans, Africans, and Indians of numerous tribes mixed uneasily. Olmsted interviewed planters, scouts, innkeepers, bartenders, housewives, drovers, loafers, Indian chiefs, priests, runaway slaves, and emigrants and refugees from every part of the known world—most of whom had "gone to Texas" looking for a fresh start. He also observed the breathtaking arrival of spring on the prairie and the starry nights that seemed to prove the truth of the German saying "The sky seems nearer in Texas."
Witold Rybczynski is the Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include the J. Anthony Lukas Prize winner A Clearing in The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century and The Perfect House.
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Book Description hardcover. Condition: Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used textbooks may not include companion materials such as access codes, etc. May have some wear or writing/highlighting. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_384164671
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket. Limited Edition. Limited edition, one of 500 copies published by SMU DeGolyer Library in 2004. No dust jacket. Quarter bound with green cloth and paper illustrated covers. Gilt lettering on spine. Covers are splayed some. Top edges of pages has a small stain near middle and very slight foxing by spine. Bottom edges of pages have slight foxing. Book is in good plus condition. Small 4to, 321 pages, 1.9 lb.; THE LIBRARY Of TEXAS, NO. 8; Small 4to 9" - 11" tall; 321 pages. Seller Inventory # OVO11437
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: As New. No Jacket. Limited. Limited to 500 copies, this handsome edition is quarter-bound in dark green cloth with paper, illustrated boards. Gilt titles on spine. Acid-free paper. Edited and annotated by historian, Randolph B. Campbell. Includes an Index and a Bibliography. A magnificent publishing achievement. This copy still in original publisher's shrink wrap. Seller Inventory # 003693
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: As New. No Jacket. Limited. Limited to 500 copies. Acid-free paper. Quarter-bound in dark green cloth with illustrated paper covers. This copy signed and dated by the editor, historian Randolph B. Campbell. This edition annotated with a Bibliography by the editor. Index. A magnificent publishing achievement. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 003694