About this item

The extraordinary story of the British aristocracys encounter with American frontier life in the nineteenth century.From the 1830s onward, a succession of well-born Britons headed west to the great American wilderness to find adventure and fulfillment. They brought their dogs, sporting guns, valets, and all the attitudes and prejudices of their class. Prairie Fever explores why the West had such a strong romantic appeal for them at a time when their inherited wealth and passion for sport had no American equivalent.In fascinating and often comic detail, the author shows how the British behavedand what the fur traders, hunting guides, and ordinary Americans made of themas they crossed the country to see the Indians, hunt buffalo, and eventually build cattle empires and buy up vast tracts of the West.