A prolific writer of prose, poetry, and regional history, Carl Carmer first gained national attention with Stars Fell n Alabama, a book about Alabama folkways. But it is his writings about upstate New York, where he was born and lived for much of his life, that firmly established him as a folk historian and master storyteller. The Hudson, originally published in 1939, is the most popular of these writings.

Best of the Rivers of America series, The Hudson is less a formal historical account of the discovery and development of the river that a personal, anecdotal view of it. Included are tales of white-sailed sloops and steamboats racing from Albany to New York; of old whalers and trader sea dogs of the Catskill shore; of showboats playing anti-rent meoldramas to incite farmers against their landlords; of great disasters and heroic deeds; of the efforts of the Hudson River School to capture "sublimity" on canvas; of the quarrelsome, rough-and-tumble life of the Dutch along the river's banks, and many more.

This commemorative fiftieth anniversary edition features 16 new drawings by Hudson River artist Edward J. McLaughlin, a foreward by New York historian Louis C. Jones, and an afterword by Roger Panetta, professor of history at the College of New Rochelle.