La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (Modern Library Exploration)

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

On April 9, 1682, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, paddled into the Gulf of Mexico. He and a small band of men in three canoes had become the first to navigate the entire length of the Mississippi River--"the object of his day-dreams, the destined avenue of his ambition and his hopes." He claimed the river and its enormous watershed for France and named it after King Louis XIV. Five years later, while searching for an overland route to the Mississippi, La Salle was killed by mutinous members of his party. La Salle had spent nearly half of his 42 years in North America, enjoying some triumphs and enduring many hardships.

Francis Parkman, one of America's greatest historians, tells the story of La Salle, his rivals, and the struggle over North America in La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. Parkman was an adventurer himself (he recounts his own five-month trek through the American wilderness in The Oregon Trail), and his experiences on the (admittedly different) frontier lent him a certain authority. He wrote with a fluid, 19th-century grace--"All day there was feasting without respite, after the merciless practice of Indian hospitality"--though some readers may find his prose too florid. First published as part of his epic seven-volume study, France and England in North America, La Salle has been inexplicably out of print for decades. Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) rescued this classic for reissue in the Modern Library's Exploration series. With an introduction by Rick Bass, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West is a welcome addition to the early history of North America. --Sunny Delaney