Retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to investigate the memorable history of his grandparents: an East Coast high society couple of the nineteenth century who left their hometown and moved to California when it was still uncivilized territory. As he delves into his family history, Ward begins to realize just how much the past can help us understand the present. Based on the correspondence of American author and illustrator Mary Hallock Foote, this work portrays the effort required from people in the Old World so as to accept a new geographic, historical, and human reality. This exciting family narrative spanning four generations was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and is considered Wallace Stegner’s most important novel, as well as one of the best American novels of the twentieth century.