The Rose of Old St. Louis

The Mississippi still roared with wild frontier freedom when a young man arrives in St. Louis, still shaking off fever from a grueling river journey. He carries nothing but ambition and the desperate hope that this rough frontier town might hold the glory he's always dreamed of. Mary Dillon's 1904 novel captures St. Louis at the moment of its becoming, a place where French aristocracy mingles with American frontiersmen, where ancient traditions clash with new ambitions, and where a lonely young traveler might find both adventure and heartbreak. He meets Mademoiselle Pelagie, a woman as sharp and beautiful as the rose she's named after, and is immediately undone. The novel traces his struggle to carve out a place in a world he only half understands, set against the heady backdrop of a city transforming from French outpost to American gateway.