Three Against the Wilderness (Classics West Collection)
by Eric Collier
List Price:
Our Price: $17.68
You Save: $0.27 (2%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $9.67 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Eric CollierEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-15
ISBN: 1894898540
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: TouchWood Editions
Book Reviews of Three Against the Wilderness (Classics West Collection)
Book Review: An excellent autobiography of a 'poineering' family - a modern classic
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the most famous books about Canadian province British Columbia, Eric Collier's gripping Chilcotin memoir `Three Against the Wilderness' (1959) is a classic homesteading account. Born in Northampton, England in 1903, Eric married a girl of Indian descent, Lillian Ross, in 1928. Two years later, in spite of his wife's hip deformity due to a childhood accident, the couple took a wagon, three horses and their 18-month-old son Veasy, along with a tent, some provisions and $33, and reached the Stack Valley where they lived in an abandoned cabin. In a few years they relocated to Meldrum Creek, ten miles away, where they lived in a tent and built their own cabin. He and his wife Lillian had promised her 97-year-old grandmother, LaLa, to bring the beavers back to the area that she knew as a child before the white man came. Collier imported several pair of beaver, and raised the area's water table sufficiently to reinstate the beaver population. He encouraged more humane trapping methods and increasingly turned his hand to writing. In 1949 he was the first non-American to win Outdoor Life's Conservation Award and in the 1950s the staff at Outdoor Life encouraged him to consider writing a book about his experiences as a pioneering conservationist and trapper. Written by longhand and then transcribed onto his Remington typewriter, Collier's recollections of 26 years of family life and 'roughing it in the bush' for Three Against the Wilderness (1959) were a hit, and soon condensed by Reader's Digest and re-sold in at least seven translations around the world. See abcbookworld for more details of this and other books related to British Columbia.
I read the `Companion Book Club' version of this book as a boy (about 11) and loved it - I expect I identified with young Veasy. It must have been condensed though, so I would recommend an original 1959 to 1960 hardback, although a new paperback version is being published soon (April 2007). Amazon resellers often have the old out-of-print hardback books for sale (mine was published by Hutchinson, London around 1960). They aren't expensive (a fiver or so) and have piccies of the log cabins, the family and local moose. The book has 270 pages of (quite small) text. The story would actually make quite a good film, and it is very sad that the book is now virtually unknown to the younger generation.
Summary of Three Against the Wilderness (Classics West Collection)
Eric Collier s riveting recollections about the 26 years that he, his wife Lillian and son Veasy spent homesteading in the isolated Chilcotin wilderness made for an international bestseller and one of the most famous books ever written about British Columbia. In the early 1930s, Collier and his family moved to Meldrum Creek, where the couple built their own log house and learned to live off the land. Fulfilling a promise to Lillian s grandmother to bring the beavers back to the area she knew as a child before the White man came, Collier was instrumental in the species survival. Collier s timeless tales about roughing it in the bush and the resourcefulness inspired by this lifestyle s challenges will engage readers young and old.Historical Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Historical Books
Alexander Hamiltonby Ron Chernow
Penguin Audio; Published: 2004-04-26; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $134.40
America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (Penguin Classics)by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Sailing Alone around the World (Penguin Classics)by Joshua Slocum
Penguin Classics; Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sistersby Charlotte Mosley
Harper; Published: 2007-11-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Profiles in Courage (slipcased edition): Decisive Moments in the Lives of Celebrated Americansby John F. Kennedy
Harper; Published: 2006-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Lost Years: A Memoir 1945 - 1951by Christopher Isherwood
HarperCollins; Published: 2000-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.99
Price in other shops:
Thomas Jefferson: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.08
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madmanby Simon Winchester
Harper; Published: 1998-08-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.49
Price in other shops:
Patton: A Genius for Warby Carlo D'Este, este, Carlo D'
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.95
Stonewall Jacksonby James Robertson
Macmillan Pub.; Published: 1997-02-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $48.00
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family's Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wildsby Norma Cobb, Charles W. Sasser, Charles Sasser
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2003-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Cabin at Singing River: One Woman's Story of Building a Home in the Wilderness (Raincoast Cornerstone)by Chris Czajkowski
Raincoast Books; Published: 2008-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.72
Price in other shops:
Cache Lake Country: Life in the North Woodsby John J. Rowlands
Countryman Press; Published: 1998-09-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.53
Price in other shops:
Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wildernessby Pete Fromm
Picador; Published: 2003-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.55
Price in other shops:
Walking Home: A Traveler in the Alaskan Wilderness, a Journey into the Human Heartby Lynn Schooler
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2011-05-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.63
Price in other shops:
Diary of a Wilderness Dwellerby Chris Czajkowski
Harbour Pub Co; Published: 2006-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.55
Price in other shops:
The Mad Trapper of Rat River: A True Story of Canada's Biggest Manhuntby Dick North
Lyons Press; Published: 2005-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.25
Price in other shops:
On the Edge of Nowhereby James Huntington
Epicenter Press; Published: 2002-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.69
Price in other shops:
We Took to the Woodsby Louise Dickinson Rich
Down East Books; Published: 2007-04-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.14
Price in other shops:
Call of the Wild: My Escape to Alaskaby Guy Grieve
Hodder & Stoughton; Published: 2007-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.14
Price in other shops: