author
H. M. (Henry Marie) Brackenridge
1786–1871
Best known for lively books about frontier travel and American expansion, this early republic writer moved easily between literature, law, diplomacy, and politics. His work drew on firsthand experience in the West, Louisiana, Florida, and South America, giving readers a vivid sense of a young nation in motion.
2 Audiobooks
Mexican letters written during the progress of the late war between the United States and Mexico, no. 1.
by H. M. (Henry Marie) Brackenridge
Brackenridge's Journal of a voyage up the river Missouri, 1811; Franchère's Voyage to Northwest Coast, 1811-1814
by H. M. (Henry Marie) Brackenridge, Gabriel Franchère
About the author
Born in Pittsburgh in 1786, Henry Marie Brackenridge was the son of writer and judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge. He studied law, entered public life early, and built an unusually wide-ranging career as a lawyer, judge, diplomat, newspaper editor, and member of Congress.
He is especially remembered as an author of travel writing and historical works shaped by his own journeys and public service. Accounts of frontier society, western travel, and life in the Mississippi Valley helped make him an important observer of the early United States, and his clear, witty style gave those subjects lasting appeal.
Brackenridge’s career took him far beyond Pennsylvania, including work connected with Louisiana, Florida, Mexico, and South America. He died in 1871, leaving behind a body of writing that captures the energy, ambition, and uncertainty of the expanding American republic.