The Valley of Shadows - Complete Collection

A lost American classic of Lincoln's Illinois — this collection includes the full annotated and updated edition for the contemporary reader, the Sangamon Story audio book and companion reader, and a copy of the original 1909 text, in its original phonetic presentation.

Before the Civil War, there was the prairie.

The Valley of Shadows is Francis Grierson's forgotten memoir of the Illinois frontier in the years leading up to the war — the camp meetings and prairie fires, the larger-than-life pioneers, and a small farm on the Sangamon County prairie that quietly became a stop on the Underground Railroad as the country slid toward its reckoning. Critics called it Shakespeare of the prairie. Edmund Wilson placed it among the essential literature of the Civil War era. And then, for the better part of a century, it was almost entirely lost — locked away behind a dense phonetic dialect no modern reader could get through.

This Collection is the whole restored work, brought back to life over four decades and gathered here in one place — the only place these pieces come together, direct from the person who did the restoring.

Your Collection includes:

• The Annotated & Updated Edition — Grierson's complete text, carefully translated out of its phonetic prairie dialect for the contemporary reader, so the humor, the cadence, and the unmistakable voice of the frontier come through clear.
• The Sangamon Story audiobook — selected readings from the heart of the book, narrated by Kirk Laughead: the seasons the Shepard family lived in the Big Log House, their work with the abolition movement, and the moral weight of a nation on the edge of war.
• The companion read-along — follow the text as the prairie voices come back to life.
• The original 1909 text — for those who want to stand where the modern reader rarely can: the book exactly as Grierson wrote it, spelled to the sound of the voices he remembered.

You can find the pieces scattered across the retailers. This is the only place they arrive together — one purchase, everything included, yours to keep.

Instant digital download. A rescued American classic, delivered direct.