Vardis Fisher’s Boise

The Boise Guide by Vardis Fisher is finally making its way to the public eye after sitting forgotten for 80 years in a Library of Congress storage box.Originally completed for the Federal Writers’ Project in 1939, the manuscript was never published. But it is now presented as Fisher intended it–with additional pictures and an introduction by Alessandro Meregaglia, the archivist who discovered it after following a trail of vague references and footnotes. Fisher, with his characteristic biting wit and keen observation, allows us a glimpse of Boise in the last days of the Great Depression– a snapshot of our past through the eyes of a beloved Idaho author.