To the Bright Edge of the World
In the winter of 1885, Colonel Allen Forrester leaves his pregnant wife Sophie at the Vancouver Barracks and leads three men up the Wolverine River into the unmapped Alaska Territory. Eowyn Ivey builds the book from Allen's expedition journal, Sophie's diary, period photographs, and military correspondence. Allen meets a shaman who appears to walk on the air, an old woman who turns into a goose, and a winter that nearly kills him. Sophie picks up bird photography, loses a baby, and battles a frontier-army garrison that does not know what to do with a literate, opinionated wife. Ivey writes the husband-and-wife counterpoint with the same fairy-tale lyric register that powered The Snow Child.
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What you might want to know about To the Bright Edge of the World
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1885, an army colonel maps the Alaska wilderness while his pregnant wife stays behind in this dual-narration historical novel from the author of The Snow Child.
Yes. To the Bright Edge of the World (2016) is Eowyn Ivey's second novel, after The Snow Child (2012). Both are set in Alaska and blend literary fiction with magical realism.
Loosely. To the Bright Edge of the World is fictional but inspired by the real 1885 Allen Expedition into the Alaskan wilderness. Eowyn Ivey researched the documented expedition extensively.
To the Bright Edge of the World was written by Eowyn Ivey, published in 2016 by Little, Brown and Company.
To the Bright Edge of the World is 417 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, To the Bright Edge of the World takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
To the Bright Edge of the World is a standalone novel by Eowyn Ivey, not part of a series.
To the Bright Edge of the World is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.