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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Between Colorado’s mountain peaks and open plains, ordinary lives meet a hard landscape.
In Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book, Anna Fuller gathers short pieces about places, people, and small events. Rather than follow one long plot, you move from scene to scene, meeting the lives of those who settle beneath the Rocky Mountains and across the plains.
These sketches invite you to slow down and notice what frontier scenery can hold. Mountain isolation, danger, and the hope of fortune form the backdrop to human concerns: loneliness, homesickness, friendship, love, and loss. The interest lies in a person or a moment, not the rush toward an ending.
What you’ll discover
- A West in glimpses Explore Colorado through separate sketches, each giving a scene or person room to matter.
- Mountains and open plains Let mountain scenery and prairie distance draw you into the lives of those who settle there.
- Ordinary people, hard country Look closely at quiet lives shaped by a landscape of danger, isolation, and possibility.
- Feeling beneath the scenery Find human concerns beneath the frontier setting, from homesickness and loneliness to friendship and love.
- Room to linger Enjoy one piece at a time, with space to pause and hold its mood.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this book if you like short stories with warm humor, vivid Western scenery, and ordinary people who surprise themselves. It suits readers curious about Colorado in the 1890s.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Kindness opens an unexpected door
- Adventure looks different from home
- Love arrives before a father is ready
- A child draws out hidden strength
- A chosen role can hide the self
- Small wishes feed the mining fever
- Setbacks bring hidden wants into view
- Learning begins on the road
- The mountains reveal people beneath their pride
Who’s who
- Mrs. Nancy TarbellA widow in a rusty bonnet who longs to go home to New England but finds Colorado tugging at her.
- Wat WarrenA kind rancher who thanks Mrs. Tarbell for rescuing his dog and soon becomes her friend.
- Sir Bryan ParkhurstA young Irish baronet who came to Colorado to shoot grizzlies and meets a girl instead.
- Kathleen MerrimanA trained nurse who holds a mountain claim alone and has a bear for a friend.
- Jacob StanwoodA charming, shabby ex-gentleman on the prairie who avoids his past and his daughter.
- Elizabeth StanwoodStanwood's twenty-one-year-old daughter, who travels two thousand miles to live with the father she barely knows.
- Simon AmberleyA gentle hermit of Lame Gulch who becomes a teacher after a girl feeds his calf.
- Waldo KeanA seventeen-year-old ranch boy who walks to Springtown to study geology.
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Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book
by Anna Fuller · 1894
A widow in a rusty black bonnet pays two dollars to save a stray collie and finds a new home.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Yes, sometimes it makes you feel as if your soul might slip away from you.”
In short
What would you do if you saw a frightened dog dragged to City Hall at the end of a pole, and you had only a few dollars to your name? That small choice opens Peak and Prairie, a set of sketches by Anna Fuller, gathered in 1894.
Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 10 min4 h 5 min fast, 6 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 74,000 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1894by Anna Fuller
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A widow ransoms a dog and finds a home
Mrs. Nancy Tarbell is a small widow in an old-fashioned black dress. She came to Springtown for her sick son Willie, who died soon after they arrived. Now she dreams of going home to New England.
Her money is tied up in railroad certificates that pay nothing, so she worries about spending two dollars on a dog. One morning she sees a rough man dragging a white collie to City Hall because the dog has no license. She pays out of pity. She names him David, because he has been delivered from the Philistines. The next morning he is gone.
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Details
- First published
- 1894
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Fuller, Anna. Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/peak-and-prairie-from-a-colorado-sketch-book.
Fuller, A. (2026). Peak and prairie: From a Colorado sketch-book. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/peak-and-prairie-from-a-colorado-sketch-book (Original work published 1894)
Fuller, Anna. Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/peak-and-prairie-from-a-colorado-sketch-book.
@book{fuller2026peak,
author = {Fuller, Anna},
title = {Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/peak-and-prairie-from-a-colorado-sketch-book},
note = {First published 1894}
}
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What is Peak and Prairie about?
It is a collection of linked sketches about Springtown, a Colorado health resort, and the ranches and mining camp around it. The stories follow widows, ranchers, gamblers, teachers, and young lovers in the early 1890s.
Who wrote Peak and Prairie and when?
The book is by Anna Fuller, with a preface dated May 1894. Six sketches first ran in American magazines before she gathered them into one book.
Are the stories connected?
Yes. They share the same setting, with Springtown, Lame Gulch, and the Peak. Some characters, such as Dick Dayton, appear in more than one chapter, so the collection reads like one portrait of a place.
The author
Anna Fuller
1853–1916 · American novelist
Anna Fuller (1853–1916) was an American novelist. She lived in the United States and wrote fiction in English in the late nineteenth century. Her books included A Literary Courtship, published in 1893, and Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book, published in 1894.
“Yes, sometimes it makes you feel as if your soul might slip away from you.”
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