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THE TWO LIVES OF BABY DOE by Gordon Langley Hall

THE TWO LIVES OF BABY DOE

By

ISBN: 054845048X
Publisher: Macrae-Smith

The riches to rags story of Baby Doe has been made into a successful opera and retains much of the same appeal here. Beginning with the coming of Horace Tabor and his wife Augusta to Colorado in 1860, their trials and hardships before they struck it rich, and leading on to the entrance of Baby Doe into their lives 20 years later, Hall captures the early spirit of the bonanza days when fortunes were made or lost overnight. The great part of the book expectedly focuses on Baby Doe herself, love affair with Tabor, their subsequent marriage, the happy days lived in lavish luxury and those of poverty when another fortune was only a hope away. Sympathetically portrayed here, Baby Doe emerges as a woman who knew what she wanted and weathered social as well as adversity with an inner strength which could only have been inspired by a great love. Her lifespan bridged the old west and modern industrial America and lends itself well to romantic interpretation at a popular level.