Best of Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2: Emigrant Girls on the Overland Trails, edited by Kenneth L. Holmes

The diaries and letters of women on the overland trails in the mid- to late nineteenth century are treasured documents. These eleven selections drawn from the multivolume Covered Wagon Women series present the best first-person trail accounts penned by women in their teens who traveled west between 1846 and 1898. These letters and diaries reflect both the unique perspective of youthful optimism and the experiences common among all female emigrants. Two of the selections are newly published, having appeared only in limited distribution collector’s editions of the original series.