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  • Published: 15 July 2012
  • ISBN: 9780307591777
  • Imprint: Crown
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

Finding Everett Ruess

The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer



The unsolved 1934 disappearance in the American Southwest of 20-year-old solo explorer, writer, and artist Everett Ruess, is among the greatest mysteries in the annals of exploration and has stirred the kind of passion and speculation accorded such legendary lost adventurers as Amelia Earhart and Into the Wild's Chris McCandless. In this definitive account of Ruess's extraordinary life and the 75-plus-year investigation of the riddle of his vanishing, David Roberts eloquently captures Ruess's tragic genius and ongoing fascination.

The definitive biography of Everett Ruess, the artist, writer, and eloquent celebrator of the wilderness whose bold solo explorations of the American West and mysterious disappearance in the Utah desert at age twenty have earned him a large and devoted cult following.

“Easily one of [Roberts’s] best . . . thoughtful and passionate . . . a compelling portrait of the Ruess myth.”—Outside

Wandering alone with burros and pack horses through California and the Southwest for five years in the early 1930s, on voyages lasting as long as ten months, Ruess became friends with photographers Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange, swapped prints with Ansel Adams, took part in a Hopi ceremony, learned to speak Navajo, and was among the first "outsiders" to venture deeply into what was then (and to some extent still is) largely a little-known wilderness. When he vanished without a trace in November 1934, Ruess left behind thousands of pages of journals, letters, and poems, as well as more than a hundred watercolor paintings and blockprint engravings.

Everett Ruess is hailed as a paragon of solo exploration, while the mystery of his death remains one of the greatest riddles in the annals of American adventure. David Roberts began probing the life and death of Everett Ruess for National Geographic Adventure magazine in 1998. Finding Everett Ruess is the result of his personal journeys into the remote areas explored by Ruess, his interviews with oldtimers who encountered the young vagabond and with Ruess’s closest living relatives, and his deep immersion in Ruess’s writings and artwork. More than seventy-five years after his vanishing, Ruess stirs the kinds of passion and speculation accorded such legendary doomed American adventurers as Into the Wild’s Chris McCandless and Amelia Earhart.

  • Published: 15 July 2012
  • ISBN: 9780307591777
  • Imprint: Crown
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

About the author

David Roberts

Nick Ronald and David Roberts are now firmly established names in the decorating world. They opened their first Grand Illusions shop in St Margaret's, Twickenham, in 1987. An inspirational home furnishings and accessories store, Grand Illusions brings innovative home ideas to an appreciative audience. As well as the shops in St Margarets, there are now two sister shops in Richmond and Bath plus two thriving mail-order catalogues, Maison and Maison Bis. Nick and David also run highly successful paint techniques courses and their ideas are featured regularly in magazines and on television, including BBC's Home Front. Their first book, Grand Illusions, was published in 1996 with Grand Illusions New Decorating following in 1998. Nick and David have recently moved to the country where they are renovating an eighteenth-century house.

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Praise for Finding Everett Ruess

    
Praise for Finding Everett Ruess:

  • "Finding Everett Ruess is easily one of [Roberts's] best...Thoughtful and passionate." --Outside
  • "A compelling, humane book." --Washington Post
  • "Excellent...[An] affectionate chronicle." --Wall Street Journal