This outstanding chronicle of desert communities in the remote parts of the American West is vibrant for its sensitive and spirited descriptions of lifestyles and customs now lost to time.

Following Mary Hunter Austin's distinctive style, we find within a number of vignettes describing rural life in a variety of California desert counties. The harsh, arid lands form a stark backdrop to the people who lead life there. This was a time before electricity and running water, before highways and the numerous luxuries of modern living. The people who lived out in the wilderness were tough in body and spirit, yet - as Austin demonstrates - many preserved both tender humanity and their spiritual side.

Austin was born and educated in Illinois, but decided to move with her family to California as a young graduate. There she embarked on a study of the Mojave Desert; her vibrant writings and observations of people in the local communities - be they white settlers or Native Americans - met with praise and renown. She spent decades traversing the American West, her writing sitting at the crossroads of social history, storytelling and catalogues of nature. She remains popular as a chronicler and beacon for times, places and lives now departed.