Books: Western Fiction
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The Way West
| Editorial Reviews
The New York Times
"With sure skill, with absolute command of every detail of
equipment, custom, speech, and thought . . . Mr. Guthrie has written
a stirring and tenderly moving book." --This text refers to
an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
An enormously entertaining classic, THE WAY WEST brings to life
the adventure of the western passage and the pioneer spirit. The
sequel to THE BIG SKY, this celebrated novel charts a frontiersman's
return to the untamed West in 1846. Dick Summers, as pilot of a
wagon train, guides a group of settlers on the difficult journey
from Missouri to Oregon. In sensitive but unsentimental prose, Guthrie
illuminates the harsh trials and resounding triumphs of pioneer
life. With THE WAY WEST, he pays homage to the grandeur of the western
wilderness, its stark and beautiful scenery, and its extraordinary
people.
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Lonesome Dove
Amazon.com
Larry McMurtry, in books like The Last Picture Show, has depicted
the modern degeneration of the myth of the American West. The subject
of Lonesome Dove, cowboys herding cattle on a great trail-drive, seems
like the very stuff of that cliched myth, but McMurtry bravely tackles
the task of creating meaningful literature out of it. At first the
novel seems the kind of anti-mythic, anti-heroic story one might expect:
the main protagonists are a drunken and inarticulate pair of former
Texas Rangers turned horse rustlers. Yet when the trail begins, the
story picks up an energy and a drive that makes heroes of these men.
Their mission may be historically insignificant, or pointless--McMurtry
is smart enough to address both possibilities--but there is an undoubted
valor in their lives. The result is a historically aware, intelligent,
romantic novel of the mythic west that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize
for fiction.
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Hell Bent for Santa Fe
| In 1841, the Republic of Texas claimed all the Mexican territory
west to the Pacific Ocean. President Mirabeau Lamar sent these 300
men to enforce the western boundary. Their struggles, failures, casualties
and final mutiny fills this true story set in historical fiction.
McCleod, the drunken commander, put his faith in a Mexican spy and
a traitorous officer, ending in loss of his command and eventual surrender
without firing a shot. This is the story of men cities and counties
of Texas are named for today, as they lived the lowest moment in Texas
history.-- |
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Not that this has to do with anything to do with the book..
I was born, live, and will die in Georgia. My grandfather used
to say that his grandfather Henry Peters came from Texas with a
friend. I can never remember the first name but the last name is
Shepherd.
When my sister was doing the family tree she discovered that Henry
was in fact
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born in Georgia to John Peters. (A lot of the Peters in this area of
Georgia; Morgan and Greene and Walton County are descended from John Peters.)
So though Henry was born in Georgia he both went to Texas and came back
from Texas with his friend. They were already in their 40's by the time
they came back to Georgia just before the American Civil War. But anyway,
I've always wondered what they did in Texas before coming back to Georgia.
Henry was old by the time my great-grandfather Charley was born and Henry
died when Charley was 10 so the full story is kind of lost because Charley
wasn't old enough to know about his father. Then again, maybe it is a
story that was best left untold to the family. :-)
When Henry Peters and Shepherd came back to Georgia they married women,
sisters to one another, who were much younger than they were. .
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After the Bugles (Buckalew
Family)
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Western Passage
The Oregon Trail had its beginnings in 1843 beneath the wagon wheels
of the Oregon Emigrating Company, a group of disparate Americans with
a common goal: to seek a new land and make it their own. The trail
met its end in 1869 with the completion of the transcontinental railway.
Western Passage is a detailed account of the Oregon Migration of 1843
in a "historical fiction" setting. In this context, the
reader can enjoy the adventure as a participant, rather than as a
student or scholar.
During its twenty-five year history, the Oregon Trail essentially
changed every year. From its rough beginnings grew an organized route.
By 1846 ferries serviced most of the major river crossings, and fully-stocked
supply depots awaited hungry travelers. Due to all the livestock driven
west, the trail became a mile-wide swath of trampled ground, providing
an easy road with no need for a guide. During the summers of 1849
and 1850, over 100,000 miners also followed the Oregon Trail, enroute
to the California gold fields. By the 1850s, Mormons were using the
trail as a source of income, supplying emigrants with food and equipment.
As the railroad extended further west, many people took the train
as far as they could before switching to the trail.
Only the 1843 migration held the true adventure of entering an
unknown land. Guides were needed to show the way; dangerous river
crossings taxed the courage of everyone; the existing fur trading
posts were unable to supply necessary food and other equipment;
and the first emigrants had to build their own road because the
Oregon Trail did not yet exist. Wagons had never been taken all
the way to Oregon, and it was entirely possible that this great
experiment might end in tragedy. It is this migration, 1843, to
which we often attribute the adventure and romanticism of the Oregon
Trail.
While researching this book, I found information to be both scarce
and scattered, requiring many months to form an outline of the complexity
of this event. The popular myth of western migration, championed
by film and television, depicts a wagon train of smiling emigrants,
traveling down a well-worn road and fighting Indians at every turn.
The truth is considerably different.
Research sources included the Oregon Historical Society, several
Oregon historical libraries, the Oregon State Archives, numerous
probate records, military discharge papers, newspaper clippings,
trail diaries, and cemetery headstones. I suspect that other sources
of information are hidden away in the attics of various descendents,
information that is essentially not available to the public. Appendix
A provides a listing of the known emigrants that were part of the
1843 Oregon Emigrating Company, along with some brief biographical
data. This appendix is nonfiction, providing new knowledge to the
scholarly community and, it is hoped, inspiring other researchers
to help fill in the gaps.
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The Lawless (The Kent
Family Chronicles) by John Jakes
| Matthew Kent, son of Jephtha Kent, is in Paris, happily pursuing
the life of one of the new "bohemian" artists and befriending
many of the new and promising artists of the time-Cezanne, Manet etc.
and rather daringly having a live-in mistress.He becomes involved
with a sadistic and violent agent of Bismarck (chancellor of Germany)and
is forced to flee the country. Dolly, his mistress, becomes pregnant
and insists that they marry to avoid the stigma of bastardy for their
child.Their marriage doesn't survive so Dolly takes their son Thomas
with her to India where she is employed as an English teacher.Matt
returns to America briefly but decides that his future lies in Europe.
Gideon makes an implacable enemy of millionaire businessman, Thomas
Courtleigh who does all he can to destroy Gideon and his business
by attacking his family, causing the death of his wife Margaret. On
the same night, Gideon's daughter Eleanor is pack raped , causing
irreparable damage to her self esteem. Eleanor leaves home at an early
age, joining an acting troupe,and therebye relinquishing respectability
as it was known in that era.After Margarets death Gideon is able to
marry his longtime mistress, Julia Kent, widow of his cousin Louis
and takes on the responsibility of her son Carter.
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Man of the Family
Reviewer: Josh Krantz
Moody, Ralph. Man of the Family.
Norton: New York, 1951.
As soon as I started reading Man of the Family, I liked it because
it takes you to the past.
One of the best things it does is creates good characters. Therefore
you hate them, like them, but either way through that, you can make
good connections. Also, what I really like is the dialog. The dialog
is good because the characters talk different from us now and its
fun to read with that in it. The book is never boring because of
the realism in it. Your always asking what is going to happen, will
the Moodys make enough money? Are they going to die? Its stuff like
that that makes it interesting. With the characters, dialog, and
realism, Ralph Moody wrote a interesting book about himself in the
past.
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