In 1846 several hundred wagons set out from Independence, Missouri, to
follow the California Trail nearly 2,000 miles across unpopulated
prairies, up sluggish and seemingly endless rivers, and through the
Rocky Mountains over the Continental Divide. There, where the water
flowed west to the far Pacific, the more prudent emigrants swung north
through present-day Idaho, though that was the longer way west. One
group, the Donner Party, braver or more foolhardy than the rest, chose
an untried route that would shorten the distance.
It did. It also subjected them to obstacles so formidable that it cost
many of them their lives. Yet it preserved their names and the story of
their travail down through history-crowded years. No work of fiction has
rendered this remarkable epic of ordeal with more vividness and power
than Richard Rhodes's novel of the Donner Party, The Ungodly.
Upon its initial printing in 1973, Rhodes's masterful tale was praised
for its realistic and gripping depiction of the struggles faced by that
ill-fated group of men, women, and children. Now, more than thirty years
later, Stanford University Press has reissued this harrowing and
haunting novel. The Ungodly is an unforgettable story of terrible
hardship and awesome courage--a story that increases our understanding
of what kind of people made this nation and what a full and immeasurable
price they paid.
