The Adventures of Captain Bonneville

by Washington Irving and Benjamin Louis Eulalie De Bonneville

Book Overview

The biography of Benjamin Bonneville - U. S. Army officer, fur trapper, and bold adventurer of the Old West - is presented here in full. A legend of his time, Captain Bonneville personified the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0792237439
• ISBN13: 9780792237433
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: National Geographic Society
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Fur Trade Classic

While some historians portray Bonneville as an arrogant, contemptuous, bumbling buffoon of the fur trade era, others also denounce the manner in which Irving attempts to place Bonneville on a pedestal. There are certainly subjects open to controversy, such as Irving's treatment (through Bonneville?) of Joseph Walker's "non-authorized" expedition to California, or the building of Fort Bonneville, known to the trappers as Fort Nonsense because of its location, etc. There are well documented accounts of Indian culture; how the trappers coexisted (and didn't) amongst the Native Americans; the never ending feuds between the American Fur Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and the Hudson's Bay Fur Company; the annual mountain rendezvous; the shortages of food; elements of nature; descriptions of geography, geology, etc.; and simply put, survival in the wilderness in the 1830's. This is a classic of the fur trade period, and Irving's writing style is very realistic and expressive of the lifesyles back then.