Letters from Yellowstone, Diane Smith
Letters from Yellowstone, Diane Smith
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Letters from Yellowstone

Author: Diane Smith

Narrator: Danny Campbell, Graham Halstead, Stephen Borne, Jim Patton, Oliver Wyman, Sophie Amoss, Barton Caplan

Unabridged: 9 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 12/23/2025

Synopsis

For readers of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things, and Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl, Diane Smith’s warmhearted and award-winning epistolary novel about a spunky young woman who joins a makeshift field study in Yellowstone National Park at the end of the nineteenth century

“I loved this book in a way that I haven’t loved a book in some time.” —James Welch, author of Fools Crow

In the spring of 1898, A. E. (Alexandria) Bartram—a spirited young woman with a love for botany—is invited to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park. The study’s leader, a mild-mannered professor from Montana, assumes she is a man, and is less than pleased to discover the truth. Once the scientists overcome the shock of having a woman on their team, they forge ahead on a summer of adventure, forming an enlightening web of relationships as they move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the backcountry. But as they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone’s beauty, the group is splintered by differing views on science, nature, and economics.

Brimming with humor, excitement, and the romance of the Yellowstone landscape, Letters from Yellowstone is a love letter to the joys of scientific discovery and America’s majestic natural beauty, as well as a thoughtful reflection on environmentalism, Native American displacement, and feminism at the dawn of a new century.

About The Author

Diane Smith studied western and environmental history at the University of Montana, and has lived in Montana for most of her life. Her first novel, Letters from Yellowstone, was the winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Fiction Prize and was nominated in the fiction category for the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Book Awards.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on April 29, 2014

I wanted to like this a whole lot more than I did. Nineteenth-century woman scientist joins cash-strapped research trip to Yellowstone Park in its earliest days, trip organizer doesn't know she's a woman until she arrives, rebarbative colleagues are redeemed (or not), natural beauties are observed,......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on April 22, 2019

In 1898 a group of scientists are joined by A.E. (Alexandra) Bartram to record the land, the plants and their uses in Yellowstone National Park. The men were shocked to find out that A.E. Bartram was a woman, with zeal to do her job. They moved to different spots within the Park and up into high count......more

Goodreads review by Terris on January 16, 2018

I really enjoyed this story set in 1898 of a group of scientists who go to Yellowstone to collect flora and fauna specimens and information to be cataloged for science. However, A.E. Bartram, who is accepted as a participant in this expedition, turns out to be - a woman! Um, uh, well, no one said.........more

Goodreads review by Lois on March 12, 2009

In 1898 A.(Alexandria) E. Bertram, a medical student from Cornell, has the opportunity to follow her real passion, botany, and join, as a last minute substitute, a research expedition to the newly opened Yellowstone Park. When she joins the team in Montana and the mild-mannered professor who is lead......more

Goodreads review by Corey on August 07, 2008

Last year we took our two small children to Powell, Wyoming where my husband and I once went to college. They had never been and we were excited to show them how beautiful the state is. On our way home to California we stopped at a little shop in Yellowstone near Old Faithful. This is where I saw th......more

Quotes

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award for Fiction

“If you’ve ever visited Yellowstone National Park or even thought about going there, you’ll enjoy Letters from Yellowstone. . . . A pleasurable story which does full justice to America’s greatest natural wonderland.” —Parade

“Insightful . . . Letters from Yellowstone charms with natural surprises.” —USA Today

“The magic of a Yellowstone summer shimmers here enticingly.” —Kirkus Reviews

“An intrepid heroine and an ineffectual but lovable hero grapple with a supporting cast of eccentric characters in first-time novelist Diane Smith’s virtuoso Letters from Yellowstone . . . There’s surprising grit in this portrait of Yellowstone, and real charm in this quietly original debut.” —Elle

"Serenely attentive, deliberately paced, as careful with psychology and history as it is with its botany, Smith's epistolary narrative makes a worthy addition to the expanding category of history-of-science novels." —Publishers Weekly

“A beautifully written and highly original first novel. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a first book that pleased me more.” —Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Lonesome Dove

“Letters from Yellowstone has it all—great story, engaging characters, fascinating history, science in the making, and all the awesome beauty of Yellowstone Park. Diane Smith is a completely wonderful writer.” —James Welch, author of Winter in the Blood

“A beautifully written epistolary story . . . The author brings an authenticity to the controversies about scientific method and the environment as well as the expedition’s finds. . . . This debut novel is an intelligent story, a charmer with style.” —The Denver Post

“Simply and brilliantly captures that time when the American wilderness was still a pristine, awe-inspiring place.” —Rocky Mountain News

“Diane Smith has written a book with real magic and grace. The prose glistens and the story lingers with elegant power.” —Thomas McGuane, author of Ninety-Two in the Shade

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