“Wickenden has written a superb biography…. David McCullough may tell us that ‘Not all pioneers went west,’ but some unlikely ones sure did, and Nothing Daunted also reminds us that different strains of courage can be found, not just on the battlefield, but on the home front, too.”

— Maureen Corrigan, “Fresh Air,” NPR

“From the elite ethos of Smith College to the raw frontier of northwestern Colorado, two friends dared to defy the conventions of their time and station. Dorothy Wickenden tells their extraordinary story with grace and insight, transporting us back to an America suffused with a sense of adventure and of possibility. This is a wonderful book about two formidable women, the lives they led — and the legacy they left.”

— Jon Meacham, Pultizer-Prize-winning author of His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope And American Lion

“... Wickenden has painstakingly recreated the story of how that earlier Dorothy and her friend Rosamond Underwood embarked on a brief but life-changing adventure…. Mining a trove of letters as well as oral histories and period documents … Wickenden lets their tale of personal transformation open out to reveal the larger changes in the rough-and-tumble society of the West—‘a back story,’ as she aptly puts it, ‘to America’s leap into the 20th century.’”

— Maria Russo, The New York Times Sunday Book Review

“A superb, stirring book. Through the eyes of two spirited and resourceful women from the civilized East, Wickenden makes the story of the American West engaging and personal. A delight to read.”

— Susan Orlean, Author of The Orchard Thief

“... Wickenden’s talent for research, observation, description, and narrative flow turn this unfaded snapshot of these early-20th-century women in the West into ... a brightly painted mural of America under construction a century ago, personified by two ladies of true grit who were nothing daunted and everything enthusiastic about where the new century would take them.”

— Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

“In Nothing Daunted, Dorothy Wickenden has beautifully captured a world in transition, a pivotal chapter not just in the life of her bold and spirited grandmother, but also in the life of the American west. Dorothy Woodruff and her friend Rosamond are like young women who walked out of a Henry James novel and headed west instead of east. Imagine Isabel Archer wrangling the ragged, half-wild children of homesteaders, whirling through dances with hopeful cowboys, and strapping on snowshoes in the middle of the night to urge a fallen horse onto an invisible trail in high snowdrifts, and you’ll have some idea of the intense charm and adventure of this remarkable book.”

— Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

“The adventures of two well-bred Yankee ladies in the still wild West makes a remarkable, funny story. But evoked through Dorothy Wickenden's skillful use of letters, diaries, and memoirs, Nothing Daunted is also a slow parade through young America. Cowboys carefully-mannered before the ladies; the bare-legged, ragged children in their brand-new school; winter sleigh rides under the new moon—all these moments have been preserved, their colors fresh for modern wonderment: A haunting evocation of a vanished world.”

—Caroline Alexander, author of The War that Killed Achilles

“Nothing Daunted is the story of the brave souls who forfeited the known world of the East to inhabit the West; as they went, they found something meaningful in the bargain…. This quintessential American tale does not stint on drama.… [T]he narrative positively glimmers.”

— Marie Arana, The Washington Post

“If you were impressed with Laura Hillenbrand’s efforts to breathe life into Seabiscuit—or wax romantic about Willa Cather’s classic My Antonia—this is a book for you.”

— Grand Rapids Press

“Both women ... had grown up surrounded by intellectuals, entrepreneurs, suffragettes and reformers. Many men in their cohort were heading to Colorado, Wyoming and California to map, mine and "civilize" the West, but few women had the desire to live among the cowboys, miners and gold prospectors who were homesteading those states. Starting with her grandmother's letters, Wickenden has lovingly pieced together their year in Colorado, a year that changed their lives forever.”

— Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

“Wickenden is a very good storyteller, and bracingly unsentimental. The sweep of the land and the stoicism of the people move her to some beautiful writing.”

— Joan Acocella, Newsweek

“Nothing Daunted is an extraordinary book.”

— Sandra Dallas, The Denver Post

“... An absorbing maze of a book—readers may well, like Woodruff and Underwood, find their hearts lost to the West.”

— The Kirkus Review