Across the Plains in the Donner Party
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Narrated by:
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Colleen Delany
About this listen
The adopted daughter of Reed, Virginia Reed Murphy's memoir is a noteworthy recounting of the Donner party disaster and its gruesome end. Her writing is sprightly, informal, and full of human interest.
©2007 Listen & Live Audio, Inc. (P)2007 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival.
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The Best Land Under Heaven
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- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cutting through 160 years of mythmaking, best-selling historian Michael Wallis presents the ultimate cautionary tale of America's westward expansion.
-
-
Well researched but performance is just mediocre
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By: Michael Wallis
-
History of the Donner Party
- A Tragedy of the Sierra
- By: C. F. McGlashan
- Narrated by: Bobbie Frohman
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
C.F. McGlashan was the newspaper publisher of the local paper in Truckee, California, the closest town to the Donner Pass. McGlashan interviewed the survivors of the Donner Party, gathered artifacts and amassed an enormous amount of secondary information. Over an 18 month period, McGlashan published serialized articles in his paper and turned his articles into a book. History of the Donner Party is considered the definitive account of one of the most notorious treks in American history.
-
-
Good story, bad reading.
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Ordeal by Hunger
- By: George R. Stewart
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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-
-
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- By: Skila Brown
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Performance
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Story
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-
-
Wow, what a wonderful read.
- By Greg Hoole on 10-01-18
By: Skila Brown
-
The Oregon Trail
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- Narrated by: Rinker Buck
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling tradition of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, Rinker Buck's The Oregon Trail is a major work of participatory history: an epic account of traveling the entire 2,000-mile length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way, in a covered wagon with a team of mules - which hasn't been done in a century - that also tells the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country.
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What listeners say about Across the Plains in the Donner Party
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-27-17
I love history first hand
I listened to this short story as I drove over Donner Summit on I-80. it was an emotional read, considering the words of a girl as I literally passed over her very footprints as the emigrant trail weaves the same path. Amazing what they endured.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- LL
- 10-13-10
Unembelished Excellence
This book was quite short, but still one of the best I have gotten so far. I have read quite a lot about the Donner party and was absolutely blown away by the simplicity of the story told by one of the survivors, Virginia Reed Murphy. The book is NOT about the Donner party, but about the Reed family that set out with them. The Donner party was a couple of days ahead of the Reeds and did not stay with them when they were stranded during the winter. If you are looking for tales of cannibalism, you won't find them here. There is one minor reference but only in that it is pointed out that the Reed family wasn't forced to eat any flesh. The narrator does a beautiful job reading.
Something important to point out is that while the situation was dire, the author conveys such hope. The story is sad, but not depressing.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Douglas
- 08-29-09
Powerful
personal account from the Donner Party.
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1 person found this helpful