Death Valley in ‘49

Not yet ten years old, William Lewis Manly is handed the reins, a little whip, and a purse of copper pennies—and sent west without his parents.

Manly begins in the rocky hills of early nineteenth-century Vermont, where a family works its own farm, makes its own clothes, and saves every scrap. Then talk of the “far West” stirs his father and Uncle James to leave for Ohio. William is to travel with his uncle, while his parents plan to follow in the spring: a long road, an unfamiliar country, and a child’s first departure from home. The journey that begins with one brave boy and a wagon will reach much farther than Ohio. Where will that first step lead?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.