From Publishers Weekly
By the time he was 37, Ledyard (1751–1788) had sailed across the South Pacific, befriended Thomas Jefferson, challenged a Russian governor to a duel in Siberia and become the first U.S. citizen to touch North America's western coast. Zug (Squash: A History of the Game) vividly renders Ledyard's remarkable life in this brisk, exciting book. After failing as a divinity student at Dartmouth, Ledyard fled to the sea, eventually volunteering to serve on what would be the legendary Captain Cook's final voyage. It was an eventful trip: Ledyard got a tattoo in Tonga and venereal disease in Tahiti, and helped slaughter natives in Hawaii. Later, still poor, Ledyard drifted to Paris and socialized with Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. They encouraged Ledyard's wildest scheme: to walk across the world, from Europe to America. The failure of this quest—ended by czarist police in Siberia—prompted Ledyard to volunteer for an even more quixotic expedition, into Africa. It was there that he met a "bleak, anonymous ending" in Cairo, dogged by disease and, Zug suggests, a life of disappointment and hardship. Zug draws on many primary sources, including Ledyard's journals and letters. A shameless self-promoter, an enterprising and original American, Ledyard is superbly resurrected in this stirring, tragic tale. Photos. Agent, Joe Regal. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In Ledyard's short life (1751-89), his accomplishments included sailing with Captain James Cook on Cook's third voyage and writing about Cook's murder in Hawaii. He formed fur-trading companies with Robert Morris, the Philadelphia financier, and John Paul Jones, the notorious sea captain, and he visited Egypt before Napoleon's invasion opened the country up to Western travelers. Thomas Jefferson asked Ledyard to explore the American continent, the plan calling for him to proceed overland through Russia, cross at the Bering Strait, and head south through Alaska and across the American West to Virginia. This expedition failed after 15 months of traveling, when Empress Catherine the Great had him arrested in Siberia. Zug asserts that during his trip Ledyard's focus was not on the landscape but on the people in it; his letters and journals sparkled with descriptions of customs and habits. This meticulously researched biography of an ingenious explorer will hold the reader's complete attention. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
The astounding story of the eighteenth-century New Englander who traveled farther on four continents than anyone else in his day and who pioneered an American archetype: the restless explorer. Called a "man of genius" by his close friend Thomas Jefferson, John Ledyard lived, by any standard, a remarkable life. In his thirty-eight years, he accompanied Captain Cook on his last voyage; befriended Jefferson, Lafayette, and Tom Paine in Paris; was the first American citizen to see Alaska, Hawaii, and the west coast of America; and set out to find the source of the Niger by traveling from Cairo across the Sahara. His greatest dream, concocted with Jefferson, was to travel alone around the world and cross the American continent from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic. Catherine the Great dashed that dream when she had him arrested in deepest Siberia and escorted back to the Polish border. Ledyard wrote the definitive account of Cook's last voyage and his death at the hands of Hawaiian islanders, and formed a company with John Paul Jones that launched the American fur trade in the Pacific Northwest. Before the Revolution, Americans by and large didn't travel great distances, rarely venturing west of the Appalachians. Ledyard, with his boundless enthusiasm and wide-ranging intellect, changed all that. In lively prose, journalist James Zug tells the riveting story of this immensely influential character -a Ben Franklin with wanderlust-a uniquely American pioneer.
About the Author
James Zug has written for The Atlantic Monthly and Outside, and is the author of Squash: A History of the Game. He attended Dartmouth College, where he first became acquainted with legendary alum John Ledyard. Zug lives in Washington, D.C.
American Traveler: The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World FROM THE PUBLISHER
The astounding story of the eighteenth-century New Englander who traveled farther on four continents than anyone else in his day and who pioneered an American archetype: the restless explorer.
Called a "man of genius" by his close friend Thomas Jefferson, John Ledyard lived, by any standard, a remarkable life. In his thirty-eight years, he accompanied Captain Cook on his last voyage; befriended Jefferson, Lafayette, and Tom Paine in Paris; was the first American citizen to see Alaska, Hawaii, and the west coast of America; and set out to find the source of the Niger by traveling from Cairo across the Sahara. His greatest dream, concocted with Jefferson, was to travel alone around the world and cross the American continent from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic. Catherine the Great dashed that dream when she had him arrested in deepest Siberia and escorted back to the Polish border. Ledyard wrote the definitive account of Cook's last voyage and his death at the hands of Hawaiian islanders, and formed a company with John Paul Jones that launched the American fur trade in the Pacific Northwest.
Before the Revolution, Americans by and large didn't travel great distances, rarely venturing west of the Appalachians. Ledyard, with his boundless enthusiasm and wide-ranging intellect, changed all that. In lively prose, journalist James Zug tells the riveting story of this immensely influential character -a Ben Franklin with wanderlust-a uniquely American pioneer.
Author Biography: James Zug has written for The Atlantic Monthly and Outside, and is the author of Squash: A History of the Game. He attended Dartmouth College, where he first became acquainted with legendary alum John Ledyard. Zug lives in Washington, D.C.
FROM THE CRITICS
Sara Wheeler - The New York Times
Zug, the author of Squash: A History of the Game, paints a convincing portrait, at least insofar as the opaque 18th-century sources allow … Zug ends the book on a poetic note that would have pleased its subject: ''John Ledyard is in the wilderness of every American explorer's mind, full of passion and hope, burning to see the next horizon.''
Publishers Weekly
By the time he was 37, Ledyard (1751-1788) had sailed across the South Pacific, befriended Thomas Jefferson, challenged a Russian governor to a duel in Siberia and become the first U.S. citizen to touch North America's western coast. Zug (Squash: A History of the Game) vividly renders Ledyard's remarkable life in this brisk, exciting book. After failing as a divinity student at Dartmouth, Ledyard fled to the sea, eventually volunteering to serve on what would be the legendary Captain Cook's final voyage. It was an eventful trip: Ledyard got a tattoo in Tonga and venereal disease in Tahiti, and helped slaughter natives in Hawaii. Later, still poor, Ledyard drifted to Paris and socialized with Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. They encouraged Ledyard's wildest scheme: to walk across the world, from Europe to America. The failure of this quest ended by czarist police in Siberia prompted Ledyard to volunteer for an even more quixotic expedition, into Africa. It was there that he met a bleak, anonymous ending in Cairo, dogged by disease and, Zug suggests, a life of disappointment and hardship. Zug draws on many primary sources, including Ledyard's journals and letters. A shameless self-promoter, an enterprising and original American, Ledyard is superbly resurrected in this stirring, tragic tale. Photos. Agent, Joe Regal. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A fast-paced account of America's first great explorer. John Ledyard was born in 1751 Connecticut, died in Cairo, and traveled almost everywhere else imaginable in the intervening 37 years. The heart of journalist Zug's bio details Ledyard's travels, of course, but the author is to be commended for paying scrupulous attention to Ledyard's early life as well. In the opening chapter, on Ledyard's childhood, Zug (Squash, 2003, etc.) manages to give a real flavor of colonial life: in just nine pages, we get religion, children's games, family networks, and romance. Chapter two, chronicling Ledyard's brief stint at Dartmouth, begins to suggest Ledyard's temperament. In college, Ledyard read Virgil, directed a play, and went backpacking on what would one day be the Appalachian Trail. But the highlight of his academic career was his exit-after only one year, Ledyard simply took off, running the Connecticut River in a canoe and winding up back at his grandfather's farm in Hartford. At loose ends, the young man decided to travel-"I allot myself a seven year's ramble more," he wrote to a cousin. This "ramble" turned out to be more than postcollege aimlessness; it was a vocation. Zug chronicles the travels, which took Ledyard to the Sandwich Islands with Captain Cook and along the Alaskan coast to look for the Northwest Passage. He spent time in Lapland, St. Petersburg, and Paris, where he was virtually adopted by Thomas Jefferson. The character that emerges is a complicated one: Ledyard was sometimes manic and sometimes overwhelmed by despair; he was a rough explorer, but he loved clothes (in all his letters, he described his wardrobe before saying anything about his itinerary or adventures). He wascourageous and sociable, but a loner. And he wanted to be famous. Thanks to Zug's fascinating re-creation of his adventuring, Ledyard is well on his way. Your average bear has never heard of Ledyard, true enough, but this brisk biography should catch the Early-America-Founding-Fathers craze.
Art & Photography
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