The Purple Land

When the young Englishman Richard Lamb elopes with an Argentine girl against her father’s wishes, the couple flees across the river to Uruguay, and Lamb sets out alone to find work in a country torn by revolution. What follows is a loose, sunlit string of adventures among gauchos, rebel fighters, and the women he meets along the road, each encounter testing his loyalties and his conscience. Hudson, who grew up on the pampas, fills the book with vivid landscape and a deep sympathy for the wild, half-feudal life of the plains. Admired by Borges and Hemingway, it reads as both a picaresque romance and a love letter to South America. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.