Non-fiction: Astoria

Overview

Washington Irving's Astoria (1836) recounts the rise and fall of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company and the short-lived American outpost at the mouth of the Columbia River. The narrative interweaves business ambition, exploration, and encounter, tracing the 1810, 1813 enterprise that sought to link North American furs to Asian markets by establishing a fortified trading post on the Pacific coast. Irving frames the venture as an emblem of early American commercial daring and the practical challenges of transcontinental trade in the age of sail.
The account balances brisk reportage with the author's characteristic literary sensibility, moving between boardroom calculations, perilous sea voyages, arduous overland treks, and vivid encounters with Indigenous nations. The book offers both documentary detail and a romanticized sense of frontier adventure, making it a foundational narrative for the national myth of western expansion.

Narrative and Sources

Astoria follows two parallel operations: the maritime expedition that sailed west under the ship Tonquin and the overland party led by Wilson Price Hunt that labored across rugged continent. The Tonquin, under Captain Jonathan Thorn, becomes central to one of the story's dramatic episodes when conflict with coastal Indigenous people at Clayoquot Sound leads to the ship's destruction and heavy loss of life. The overland party faces hunger, harsh winter, and difficult negotiations with Native peoples as it struggles toward the Columbia. The remote outpost itself is beset by supply shortages and strategic vulnerability.
Irving compiled his account from Astor's papers, personal letters, and published and unpublished narratives by participants such as Gabriel Franchère and Robert Stuart, as well as official correspondence. He supplements firsthand testimony with maps, business records, and contemporary reports to reconstruct events and to explain the commercial logic of the venture. This documentary foundation gives the tale both narrative momentum and a sense of evidentiary weight.

Themes and Style

The book examines the interplay of commerce, exploration, and national interest. Astor's plan is presented as the product of shrewd entrepreneurship and high-stakes calculation, yet Irving emphasizes how environmental hazards, human error, and geopolitical developments, including the outbreak of the War of 1812, undermine the enterprise. Encounters with Indigenous nations are treated at length, noting trade practices, alliances, and conflicts; Irving's portrayals reflect both contemporary curiosity and the period's paternalistic assumptions.
Stylistically, Irving blends sober reportage with picturesque description. He lavishes attention on the Columbia River's landscape and the dramatic coastlines, while also narrating boardroom decisions and grim survival scenes. The tone alternates between admiration for commercial initiative and sympathy for the human cost of frontier enterprise, yielding a narrative that is at once informative, elegiac, and classically Romantic.

Legacy

Astoria became a principal source for later histories of the Pacific Northwest, shaping American perceptions of early fur trade ventures and the region's role in national expansion. Irving's readable synthesis brought obscure documents and voyage narratives to a broad public, preserving the story of the Pacific Fur Company and the personalities involved. Although the enterprise itself failed commercially, Astoria was surrendered to the British North West Company during the War of 1812, the episode acquired symbolic value as an early American reach for the Pacific.
Historians value the book both for its contemporary sources and for its cultural impact; it remains a useful introduction to the period while also reflecting the interpretive lenses of its author and era. As a blend of business history, exploration narrative, and cultural encounter, Astoria continues to inform how the early U.S. engagement with the Pacific Northwest is remembered.