Across the Plains: With other Memories and Essays (Cambridge Library Collection - History) Book

Across the Plains is the middle book of a trilogy dealing with some of Stevenson's travels. I do not recommend starting with this book any more than I would recommend starting with the middle book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The first book of the trilogy is The Amateur Emigrant, which chronicles how Stevenson came to be in New York at the start of Across the Plains. The Amateur Emigrant is available on the Gutenberg website under the title "Essays of Travel." E-readers that offer the complete works of Stevenson put it under the same title. Why Across the Plains rates its own book and The Amateur Emigrant (256 printed pages long) does not is a mystery to me.

The Amateur Emigrant was written shortly after the events it describes took place. However, it was not published until just after the writer's death. Many regard The Amateur Emigrant as Stevenson's greatest work because it is here that he really tackles issues of class in Victorian society head on, and has a number of profound insights to share with readers. I am going to finish The Amateur Emigrant and then re-read Across the Plains quickly in order to do the work justice in my review of it here.

One final caveat because others who are reviewing Across the Plains are giving it such low marks. Stephenson was in part a travel writer. Travel writing exists today, but was a genre that was much more popular in the late 1800s than now. D H Lawrence, a contemporary of Stephenson's, was even more of a travel writer, although like Stephenson he also wrote great fiction masterpieces. The reason for travel writing's popularity during this period is because not many people could do much extensive travel back then. Nor could they go see movies or televison programs about far away places. The only way people could experience exotic locales was through the work of travel writers. Therefore, travel writers' work of this era takes on much of the elements a National Geographic documentary film of today might. Readers expecting something like tightly plotted narrative fiction, or even deeply probing historical analysis of the place and time being described will invariably be disappointed when their expectations are not met. All Stephenson is trying to do with his travel writing is transport his 19th century reader to a different time and place, shoot some footage, and let the reader make up his mind as to what is to be made of it. If this doesn't sound like it would be of interest to you, I recommend reading Stephenson's literary work instead, the best of which would be Kidnapped, Catriona, and The Master of Ballantrae. Stephenson's work has been reevaluated in the last 5 or 10 years by literary scholars to be on a level with Stephen Crane and Jack London, certainly, and almost up to Henry James' or Thomas Hardy's quality. Stephenson is worth some effort.