In 1925, Harold Speakman and his new wife, Frances "Russell" Lindsay Speakman, journeyed down the entire Mississippi River, from the headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, on a twenty-foot houseboat.

A classic American travel narrative that captures the soul of the river, Mostly Mississippi features lyrical descriptions of encounters with archetypal characters, landscapes, and experiences. The Speakmans meet lumberjacks in northern Minnesota and Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, as well as roustabouts, hoboes, farmers, drifters, Southern grandees, Native Americans, collegians thirsting...