Richard Austin Pierce (July 26, 1918, Manteca, California – September 14, 2004, Kingston, Ontario) was an American historian and publisher who specialized in the Russian era of Alaska's history.
During the latter tenure he had three homes, one in his native California, one in Kingston, and one in Fairbanks, the latter in the Rainey-Skarland Cabin, which has been "a veritable who's who of northern researchers including Ivar Skarland, Helge Larsen, J. Louis Giddings, Frederica de Laguna and Henry B. Collins and Otto W.
This book originated in 1958, with a letter received from Hector Chevigny, author of the popular Alaskan historical works Lost Empire, on N. P. Rezanov, and Lord of Alaska, on Alexander Andreyevich Baranov.
Chevigny had planned to write yet a third book on another notable person in the history of Russian America, Grigoriĭ Shelikhov, until loss of eyesight forced him to lay the project aside.
In frequent correspondence, and occasionally at the Chevigny apartment in Manhattan, we traded information and threshed out questions about all but forgotten people and events of early northwestern North America.