Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West Audiobook

Quotes

• “A superb, stirring book. Through the eyes of two spirited and resourceful women from the civilized East, Wickenden makes the story of the American West engaging and personal. A delight to read.”

  — Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

• “The adventures of two well-bred Yankee ladies in the still wild West makes a remarkable, funny story. But evoked through Dorothy Wickenden's skillful use of letters, diaries, and memoirs, Nothing Daunted is also a slow parade through young America. Cowboys carefully-mannered before the ladies; the bare-legged, ragged children in their brand-new school; winter sleigh rides under the new moon—all these moments have been preserved, their colors fresh for modern wonderment: A haunting evocation of a vanished world.”

  — Caroline Alexander, author of The Bounty and The War that Killed Achilles

• “Wickenden has painstakingly recreated the story of how that earlier Dorothy and her friend Rosamond Underwood embarked on a brief but life-changing adventure, teaching the children of struggling homesteaders…Wickenden lets their tale of personal transformation open out to reveal the larger changes in the rough-and-tumble society of the West…Fascinating…scenes emerge with a lovely clarity.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Wickenden uses personal history to illuminate the larger story of manifest destiny.”

  — New Yorker

• “Dorothy Wickenden was lucky to have such intriguing forebears...but the satisfying depth and vivacity of Nothing Daunted, the intimate, report-from the ground American saga the author has created with that correspondence as a foundation, have nothing to do with good fortune. Wickenden’s talents for research, observation, description, and narrative flow turn this unfaded snapshot of these early-20th-century women in the West into something even more resonant— a brightly painted mural of America under construction a century ago, personified by two ladies of true grit who were nothing daunted and everything enthusiastic about where the new century would take them.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

• “An enchanting family memoir…A brilliant gem of Americana.”

  — Washington Post Book World

• “Wickenden is a very good storyteller, and bracingly unsentimental. The sweep of the land and the stoicism of the people move her to some beautiful writing.”

  — Newsweek

• “A superb biography…Wickenden summons up the last moments of frontier life, where books were a luxury and, when blizzards hit, homesteader’s children would ski miles to school on curved barrel staves…Nothing Daunted also reminds us that different strains of courage can be found, not just on the battlefield, but on the home front, too.”

  — Fresh Air

• “Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood come alive in Nothing Daunted, Dorothy Wickenden’s fascinating slice of social history…Their story is blessed with a cast of supporting characters that novelists would envy.”

  — USA Today

• “Dorothy Wickenden has crafted an exquisite book.”

  — Boston Globe

• “If you were impressed with Laura Hillenbrand’s efforts to breathe life into Seabiscuit—or wax romantic about Willa Cather’s classic My Antonia—this is a book for you.”

  — Grand Rapids Press