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Author: Ruxton, George Frederick Augustus
Title: Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains
Place Published: London
Publisher:John Murray
Date Published: 1847
Description: [2], [i-ii] iii-viii, [1] 2-332, [1] 2-16 (ads) pp. (8vo) 18.3 x 13 cm (7¼x5¼“), period green quarter-morocco and marbled paper-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt, speckled edges. First Edition.With bookplate of Roger K. Larson designed by Tom Killion. After military service, Ruxton spent the rest of his life as an adventurer, diplomat, traveler, and author. He is best remembered for his two works resulting from travels in America. On his second trip to the United States, taken ironically to recover his health, he died of dysentery in St. Louis.Like many British travelers before him, Ruxton had mixed views about the New World. He, for example, did not like Mexicans, Yankee traders, dirty immigrants, or American soldiers. On the other hand, he did admire Native Americans and especially mountain men, his descriptions of whom remain classics. This work reflects all those aspects of his personality. Here he is especially adept at capturing dialects. For example, while staying with a mountain man named Laforey, he quotes him as saying this about his lack of coffee to his guests: “...voyez-vous dat I vas nevare tan pauvre as dis time; mais before I vas siempre avec plenty café, plenty sucre; mais now, God dam I not go à Santa Fé, God dam, and mountain-men dey come aqui from autre côtè, drink all my café“ (p. 208). His description of a buffalo‘s death throes after it has been shot is extremely moving (p. 268).
F.E. Voelker, in his essay ‘Ruxton of the Rocky Mountains,‘ in the Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society (January, 1949) explained that Ruxton ‘was acting in the dual capacity of roving commercial attache of the British diplomatic service and commercial agent of the Mexican government‘, apparently for the purpose of re-establishing the Santa Fé trade that had been interrupted by the Mexican War. After his return to England, in 1847 he prepared for publication both [this] work and his ‘Life in the Far West.‘ Ruxton is bitterly critical of Mexico and the Mexicans, with the exception of Mexican women.

Rubbing at extremities; front hinge repaired, a few hints of foxing; very good or better.