A scarce first edition of this much reprinted work. Isabelle Randall spent two years in Montana (1884-1886) with her husband and son.
“Word had spread throughout Great Britain in the late 1870s by way of travel books and the press about the fine opportunities in the American West for cattle raising and horse breeding” (Smith). So the Randalls joined many of the younger (second and third born - those who wouldn’t inherit family estates) members of the British nobility who left England in the 1880s for adventures in the United States.
The Randalls crossed the Atlantic, made a detour to see Niagara Falls before heading to Montana via Chicago, St Paul, and the Yellowstone Valley. They arrived at Moreland on 23 October, 1885. The Randall’s highborn attitude to life in Montana didn’t exactly endear them to their neighbours, though their servants (the Morrises who travelled with them from England) were made welcome. Randall does herself no favours when writing: “How can anyone keep servants in their place when the people, whom we associate with, invite them to their homes as equals.” After the Morrises found better employment, and with her refusing to hire any Americans, Randall assumed household duties herself. This entailed a great shift in attitude, dealing with frozen washbasins and food in the winter. The house had seven bedrooms.
One can’t help but feel for her, this kind of isolation is easy for few. On May 3rd, she writes: “Jem starts directly after breakfast every morning now, as he is riding on the horse round up, and I don’t see him again all day.” Her prose brightens considerably when she talks about her own horse riding and she describes a bronco in some detail.
No less than Dorothy Sloan writes, “The author, the first of the English ranch wives in Montana, tells of hunting for cattle, driving horses to a nearby ranch, round-ups, her plans to ride a bronco, rustling, etc.” King adds “An Englishwoman’s letters about ranch life in [Moreland] Montana in the 1880s; presents a lively portrayal of American customs and social life in the West.”
Rare in the trade: Rare Book Hub list just eight copies for sale between 1927 and 2006.
Adams, Herd, 1860; Howes R49 “a”; King, Women on the Cattle Trail, p. 18; Sloan, D., Women in the Cattle Count; 506; Smith, 8493; not in Wayward Women; Smith, P., “Isabelle Randall and the ‘Natives’” in Montana The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 52, No. 1 (spring, 2002) p.67.
