Brave Hearted: The Dramatic Story of Women of the American West

Description

"Myth and misunderstanding spring from the American frontier as readily as rye grass from sod, and - like the wiry grass - seem as difficult to weed out and discard." The true-life story of women's experiences in the 'Wild West' is more gripping, more heart-rending, and more stirring than all the movies, novels, folk-legends and ballads that popular imagination has been able to create. Whether they were the hard-drinking hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns, 'ordinary' wives and mothers walking two thousand miles across the prairies pulling their handcarts behind them, Chinese slave-brides working in laundries, or the Native American women displaced by the mass migration of the 'whites' to their lands, all have one trait in common: that of extreme resilience and courage in the face of the unknown. Reading the extraordinary accounts they have left behind them, their experiences seem as strange to us today as it must have been to have lived through them, perhaps even stranger. They were put to the test, in terms of sheer survival, in ways that we can only dimly imagine. Praise for Katie Hickman 'Fascinating . . . I was swept along by Hickman's concise chapters and her crisp, wry style,' The Times 'Absolutely brilliant . . . remarkable women, until now almost unknown. I was so gripped I couldn't put it down' Antonia Fraser 'Goes beneath the surface of imperial male history . . . a cast of extraordinary women. Wonderful' Anita Anand

Katie Hickman is the author of nine books, including two bestselling works of non-fiction, Daughters of Britannia - in the Sunday Times bestseller lists for ten months and a twenty part series for BBC Radio 4 - and Courtesans. She has also written a trilogy of historical novels - The Aviary Gate, The Pindar Diamond and The House of Bishopgate - which have been translated into twenty languages. Her other books include two highly acclaimed travel books, including Travels with a Mexican Circus which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. Her most recent titles include the historical She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlemwomen: British Women in India. Born into a diplomatic family, she had a peripatetic childhood, growing up in Spain, Ireland, Singapore and South America; she has two children and lives in London.

Brave Hearted is not just history, it is an incredibly intense page-turning experience. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain, and occasionally victory. This book is a triumph. * Amanda Foreman * A vivid, fascinating rag rug of cultural history that braids together stories usually kept apart . . . Gripping, eye-opening, enlightening -- Emma Donoghue This book delivers a blazing 360 degree view of the American story. Each page is packed with gumption and grit and genius. -- Bettany Hughes Katie Hickman has gathered a collection of intriguingly vivid first-hand accounts written by some of the women who ventured west. . . Hickman's Brave Hearted puts the rough texture of personal experience back into the big narrative of how the west was won. Along the way, she shows us what was lost. -- Lucy Lethbridge * Literary Review * Beautifully written, this gripping book explores the stories of the fierce women who helped shape the American West. -- Clover Stroud * Independent * In the past 50 years there has been an explosion of scholarly research that has served to dismantle those hoary old myths about the Wild West as a white male space in which women looked worried or sashayed into a saloon bar looking for trouble. In Brave Hearted Hickman makes deft and sensitive use of this new material. The result is a glorious patchwork . . . does these extraordinary women proud -- Kathryn Hughes * Sunday Times * In this richly evocative book, Hickman takes us to the crux of women's experiences in that fast- changing world, where opportunities for women were opening up in an often lawless atmosphere of greed, gambling, drinking and whoring. It was a rough ride, and the survivors were heroines, all of them. * Daily Mail * 'Working mainly with published sources, [Hickman] has woven together an extraordinary range of women's first-person voices - we hear from more than fifty of them - into a gripping narrative.' * TLS * A triumphant narrative that brings many overlooked women into the spotlight. * Booklist * As easy to read as any Western with the added advantage of showing a new version of the Old West, one vital for readers to explore. * Library Journal * Full of heartrending accounts of courage and tragedy, this is a vital contribution to the history of America's frontier. * Publishers Weekly * An unforgettable cast of characters brings an epic tale to life. * BBC History Magazine * Absolutely compelling; telling the stories of women who for so many years have been written out of history, and making us completely rethink our image of the Wild West. -- Christina Lamb * Sunday Times * [A] wide-ranging survey of the multifaceted roles of women in the 19th-century settlement of the American West... Hickman writes sensitively... A welcome corrective to the long-skewed male-centric history of westward expansion. * Kirkus *