Alaska-Klondike Diary of Elizabeth Robins, 1900

Book Overview

Among the throngs of gold-seekers rushing to Nome in the summer of 1900 was Elizabeth Robins, well known as an actress prominent on the London stage and on the brink of becoming well known as a novelist and journalist. She traveled alone to the north, seeking not monetary wealth but her brothers, Saxton and especially Raymond, her youngest sibling, whom she feared had fallen under the spell of a dubious religious persuasion. What she actually found provided the raw material for her writing and political activism during the rest of her life.

This diary is one of the most engaging, witty, and readable of the accounts surviving from the turn of the century in Alaska and the Yukon. Robins not only reveals the perceptions of a woman facing new phases of her own life but also provides vivid portraits of people whose ideas and activities were transforming the north.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0912006994
• ISBN13: 9780912006994
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: University of Alaska Press
• Length: 390 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Jack London Style

The Alaska-Klondike Diary of Elizabeth Robins is a refreshing look at life at the end of the American Frontier. The feminist view that Robins carries to the gold rush of 1900 offers the reader not only a glimpse into the life of women at the time, but offers an in depth look at the struggles and hardships faced by men and women alike as they fight for survival in the Klondike. Just as Gates promises in the introduction, "At times the reader may forget that it is a day-to-day account of events as they unfold and think it instead a novel," the diary flows with the practiced ease of thinking to oneself. In addition, Gates' careful editing is complimented well with augmenting photos that lend to the flow. The Alaska-Klondike Diary of Elizabeth Robins exemplifies the literary spirit and zest for life for which popular culture has acquired a taste. Gates' novel is carrying on the spirited tradition Jack London Style.