Since it was first published in 1932, A Frontier Lady has held a high and special place in the literature of Americas westward migration. Written in the 1880s at the request of her son, the philosopher and educator Josiah Royce, Sarah Royce's narrative of the family odyssey across the continent and of their early years in California is also the portrait of a remarkable woman. In the words of her daughter-in-law, "Wherever she was, she made civilization, even when it seemed that she had little indeed from which to make it."

"A graphic and moving picture of the gold rush to California."—New York Times

"Accounts have been written of many early journeys across the plains by those who accomplished them and California is rich in personal literature of the gold rush. Few of those memoirs have the drama and classic quality of that written from her 'pilgrimage diary' by Sarah Royce. Characteristic events seem to have lain deep in her memory there to be transformed by something more than personal emotion into generic portraiture. . . . The remembrances maintain a bold and natural outline to the end, with the unconscious achievement of style."—New Republic

"Has the double interest of an adventure story and of history."—New York Evening Post