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10th Anniversary Edition —
The Silver Baron’s Wife

$15.00

Release Date: September 15, 2026
Where to Buy: On our website, Book Shop, Thrift Books

TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH NEW AUTHOR INTRODUCTION

The Silver Baron's Wife traces the rags-to-riches-to-rags life of Colorado's Baby Doe Tabor (Lizzie). This fascinating heroine worked in the silver mines and had two scandalous marriages, one to a philandering opium addict and one to a Senator and silver baron worth $24 million in the late 19th century. A divorcée shunned by Denver society, Lizzie raised two daughters in a villa where 100 peacocks roamed the lawns, entertained Sarah Bernhardt when the actress performed at Tabor's Opera House, and after her second husband's death, moved to a one-room shack at the Matchless Mine in Leadville. She lived the last 35 years of her life there, writing down thousands of her dreams and noting visitations of spirits on her calendar. Hers is the tale of a fiercely independent woman who bucked all social expectations by working where 19thcentury women didn't work, becoming the key figure in one of the West's most scandalous love triangles, and, after a devastating stock market crash destroyed Tabor's vast fortune, living in eccentric isolation at the Matchless Mine. An earlier version of this novel won the PEN/New England Discovery Award in Fiction.

Release Date: September 15, 2026
Where to Buy: On our website, Book Shop, Thrift Books

TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH NEW AUTHOR INTRODUCTION

The Silver Baron's Wife traces the rags-to-riches-to-rags life of Colorado's Baby Doe Tabor (Lizzie). This fascinating heroine worked in the silver mines and had two scandalous marriages, one to a philandering opium addict and one to a Senator and silver baron worth $24 million in the late 19th century. A divorcée shunned by Denver society, Lizzie raised two daughters in a villa where 100 peacocks roamed the lawns, entertained Sarah Bernhardt when the actress performed at Tabor's Opera House, and after her second husband's death, moved to a one-room shack at the Matchless Mine in Leadville. She lived the last 35 years of her life there, writing down thousands of her dreams and noting visitations of spirits on her calendar. Hers is the tale of a fiercely independent woman who bucked all social expectations by working where 19thcentury women didn't work, becoming the key figure in one of the West's most scandalous love triangles, and, after a devastating stock market crash destroyed Tabor's vast fortune, living in eccentric isolation at the Matchless Mine. An earlier version of this novel won the PEN/New England Discovery Award in Fiction.

Publisher's Weekly

In this eloquent novel, Stein portrays the independent, eccentric, and resilient woman known as Baby Doe, a legendary figure from Colorado's silver boom. Elizabeth "Lizzie" McCourt Doe is a renowned beauty who moved from Wisconsin to Colorado in the 1870s so that her husband, Harvey Doe, could work in the silver mine that they partially owned. Confronted with his addictions and womanizing, Lizzie divorces Harvey. He heads home to Wisconsin, but she stays in Colorado out of shame and embarrassment. What later begins as an affair with Horace Tabor, a married silver magnate 30 years her senior, eventually turns into a loving marriage with two daughters. Though they are tremendously wealthy, the couple is shunned socially, and a financial crisis soon wipes out their fortune. As Lizzie's problems mount, she becomes reclusive, living alone in a cabin with her visions--holy images and complex dreams from her past, revealed to readers in a lyrical, meditative voice. Stein's blend of love story, scandal, and mystical experience is satisfying and entertaining.An artistic, sympathetic imagining of the life of a 19th-century woman who made headlines for all the wrong reasons. - Kirkus ReviewsIn this eloquent novel, Stein portrays the independent, eccentric, and resilient woman known as Baby Doe, a legendary figure from Colorado's silver boom. ...Stein's blend of love story, scandal, and mystical experience is satisfying and entertaining. - Publishers Weekly BookLifeA unique portrait of a time and place populated by fearless people, this reimagination of an uncommon woman is powerful.

Foreword Reviews

A unique portrait of a time and place populated by fearless people, this reimagination of an uncommon woman is powerful. Elizabeth McCourt Tabor was a nineteenth-century legend who married a silver magnate and gained notoriety for her spectacular rise and fall in the mining west. In The Silver Baron’s Wife, Donna Baier Stein draws from Tabor’s notes on her dreams to powerfully reimagine one of the frontier’s uncommon women. The tightly focused plot details the fictionalized Lizzie’s struggle to reconcile her Catholic faith with her ambition. At first married to a layabout whose path takes them to the Fourth of July mine in Colorado, she divorces him after a series of complications. She then marries Horace Tabor, a businessman and politician. The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act leads to the couple’s decline in fortune, sparking her eventual retreat into solitude. From a comfortable childhood to poverty to extreme riches and back to a hardscrabble existence at the end of her life, colorful dramas are cast in a sympathetic light.The Silver Baron’s Wife is a story of hope, loss, and mental unraveling that offers a unique portrait of a time and place that often rewarded—and punished—the fearless. ***** Indies Winner, Bronze, General Fiction, Finalist, Historical Fiction