“A Sort of Vagabond’s Castle”: Building Dreams in the Andes

Abstract

Jane and Ken were back in Quito by December 1956.¹ Most likely they immediately began work on the manuscript based on their jungle trip, but again, it would be a year and a half before The Head with the Long Yellow Hair was published. For one thing, they had to find a new publisher. Henry Regnery wasn’t interested, and only through the aid of a literary agent was Jane able to acquire her second publisher, Robert Hale of London.² Her book, published in early 1958, joined Hale’s list of contemporary travel adventures spanning the globe. The book contained 189 pages plus 22 photographs on 12 glossy plates—an impressive work that should have marked Jane’s real arrival on the professional travel writer’s market. But the British edition never made it to the United States,³ and the book never sold well enough to be reprinted or translated.⁴ Today, despite its quality as a travel narrative and significance to her early career, it is one of her rarest works to find.