Why a Booktrail?
Imagine if you were the only woman in a rough mining town
The Solitary Woman of Shakespeare
What you need to know before your trail
When seventeen-year-old Abigal Walker, the youngest of four sisters and desperate to escape her mother’s oppressive house and her tedious factory job in the East, responded to the ad, Man in Territory seeks correspondence with adventurous gal, she thought she had found her ticket to love and freedom.
She falls in love with a man named Henry through the lovely letters he sends her about his home in the West and she agrees to travel there to Shakespeare to become his wife. But instead she finds herself lured to a rough mining town and twice-deceived. The first surprise she discovers upon arrival in Shakespeare is that she is the sole woman to have ever set foot there.
Travel Guide
Shakespeare (NM)
Excitedly, Shakespeare is a ghost town which really exists in the southern part of New Mexico. UIT’s close to where the author grew up – Visit it here
Shakespeare is a town that is full of only lowlifes , miners and gamblers as Brent first describes it. In real life there are really people living here as well as ghosts – The Stratford Hotel still stands on Avon Avenue and there are also a few other buildings still very much in their original condition.
“Town like that’s no place for a woman”
We meet Abigail standing in the front doorway of the Ore saloon and Gaming House , watching Shakespeare come awake. She sometimes finds beauty in the “wretchedness of the place for it is full of bull skulls, tins cans, piles of rock and horseshoes amongst other things strewn around. There are no sidewalks and the buildings are made from shoddy wood that don’t look capable of standing upright for very much longer.
It was called Shakespeare as two English men came looking for silver in the hills but they would have to sort out the town first as it had a bad name for crime and bogus diamond mines. It had been called Mexican Springs but they called it Shakespeare as it reminded them and others of class, quality, English heritage and a good name can do an awful lot for a place as well as a person.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Solitary Woman of Shakespeare
Author/Guide: James Terry Destination: Shakespeare, NM
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