Best Little Stories of the Wild West Rating :
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting Collection of Western Vignettes!
By Michael OConnor
Anyone with an interest in the American West will want to check out this 2002 collection of short stories by C. Brian Kelly, who has done several other BEST LITTLE STORIES volumes. Kelly offers up over 80 vignettes on the American frontier in the 19th Century. There's something for everyone in this volume from Cumberland House.
To my mind, the title BEST LITTLE STORIES FROM THE WILD WEST is a bit misleading. Its coverage is much wider, entries running from 1801 to 1896. The book is arranged chronologically, the first chapter - "First Explorations" - opening with a five-pager on Meriwether Lewis circa 1801. Lewis & Clark articles take up most of Chapter One, succeeding chapters being devoted to "Mountain Men and Texans," "Emigration, Wars and Gold," "Nation of Two Faces," "Cowboys & Indians, Lawmen & Outlaws," "Sliding into a New Century" and "Fascinating Women of the West."
As might be expected, the book resounds with many famous westerners - Crockett, Bowie, Brigham Young, James Marshall, Black Bart, Sarah Winchester, Custer, John Wesley Powell and a few others not normally thought of as being of the West: Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, etc.
Stories range from grizzly bear attacks to Christmas at an isolated fort, exploits of U.S. Army Apache scouts to accounts of an 1880s Kansas blizzard, shooting the Grand Canyon to the story of the Promontory Summit golden spike and so on. The nice thing about these BEST LITTLE STORIES books is that you can be read them straight through or jump in at any page for some interesting tidbit.
In short, an interesting, entertaining and inexpensive introduction to the American West. Recommended.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating and well-written
By K. Blair
This is the story of the "Wild West" from Lewis & Clark onward. Easy to read and informative.
Product Description
From the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803 to the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, a great historical drama unfolded on the American frontier.
Best Little Stories of the Wild West uncovers the fascinating tales that make up this inimitable century. The era of the Wild West was a century-long period characterized by ceaseless exploration, wagon trains, straining westward, cattle drives, Indian wars, gunfights, wandering trappers and mountainmen, cowboys, rustlers, stagecoaches, and gold.
Among the many fascinating stories recounted in this book are:
- Meriwether Lewis's first-ever Indian fight
- The desperate search during the Lewis and Clark expedition for a passageway through the Rocky Mountains before winter struck
- Bespectacled Easterner Teddy Roosevelt's rude treatment in the Dakota Badlands in the 1880s
- The high drama of the San Francisco earthquake
- Anecdotes that follow the construction of the transcontinental railroad
- The western explorations of topographical engineer Stephen Long
- The courageous army officer who held the Indians of the Southwest at bay during the Civil War
- The criminal adventures of the Dalton Gang
- The work of the explorer-botanist David Douglas
- The story behind Boothill in Tombstone, Arizona
- The legend of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch
- Little-known lawman Thomas J. Smith of Abilene
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #370430 in Books
- Published on: 2002-08-01
- Original language:English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.62" h x5.67" w x.98" l,1.20 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 416 pages
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