Hard Time: Voices From A State Prison, 1849-1914 is the story of the state penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota -- a dangerous, sometimes lethal, stone fortress erected for the purpose of exacting punishment and penance from it's inmate population. Enhanced throughout with period photography, Hard Times is a documentary history of the facility where those men deemed incorrigible were send to do "hard time" and which, over the sixty-five years of its existed, evolved to become one of the most respected penal institutions in the nation. Hard Times offers up such memorable events as the imprisonment of the Younger gang in 1876; the prison fire of 1884; the escape of Frank P. Landers and Oscar J. Carlon in 1887; the "twine shop insurrection" of 1899; the manhunt for escaped convicts Peter Juhl and Jerrfy McCarty in 1911; and a great deal more. Very highly recommended contribution to Penology Studies; Minnesota History; and American History supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections...

Elizabeth Taylor, one of those indomitable Victorian women who hiked their skirts and explored where even tough moderns would pause, faced the wilds of northern Canada and of the Faroe Islands. The miserable weather etched the inhabitants but didn't faze our guide.

Taylor was neither a sentimentalist nor a cynic but saw clearly and wrote straight. Trained as an artist and enamored of nature--especially birds and flowers--Taylor appreciated people who lived closest to her beloved surroundings. By her account, they responded to her interest by inviting her to share their hard-bitten lives and without pretense, she accepted their invitations.

Taylor financed her economic travels by writing for middle class magazines, like Frank Leslie's, and for outdoors magazines where a female byline was a rarity. These essays come from those published pieces and some journals archived in her hometown, Minneapolis. A descendent has assembled the collection, but the task had real literary and cultural value that counts for much more than familial duty.

A book about places few of us ever would want to visit became for me a book full of passages worthy of reading to friends. A description of the whale hunt, for example, rings with authority and subdued horror. Elizabeth Taylor emerges as her own modest heroine, and her quiet, gemhard descriptions stay alive long after the book is finished.