Contents: Bret Harte: Muck-a-muck -- Right eye of the commander -- Luck of roaring camp -- Outcasts of Poker Flat -- Tennessee's partner -- Brown of Calaveras -- Mark Twain: Notorious frog of Calaveras County -- Jim Blaine and his grandfather's ram -- Scotty Briggs and the parson -- What stumped the bluejays (Jim Baker's bluejay yarn) -- Californian's tale -- Ambrose Bierce: Holy terror -- Secret of Macarger's Gulch -- Night-doings at "Deadman's" -- Stranger -- Owen Wister: Specimen Jones -- Serenade at Siskiyou -- Second Missouri compromise -- Sharon's choice -- Frederick Remington: Sergeant of the orphan troop -- Sun-down Leflare's warm spot -- Sun-down's higher self -- When a document is official -- Billy's tearless woe -- Stephen Crane: A man and some others -- Bride comes to Yellow Sky -- Twelve O'clock -- Moonlight on the snow -- Jack London: All gold canyon -- Frank Norris: Passing of Cock-eye Blacklock -- Two hearts that beat as one -- Stewart Edward White: Girl who got rattled -- Prospector -- Ole Virginia -- Corner in horses -- Two-man gun -- O. Henry: Ransom of Mack -- Call loan -- Princess and the puma -- Passing of Black Eagle -- Departmental case -- Last of the troubadours -- Mary Austin: The land -- Case of conscience -- Ploughed lands -- Return of Mr. Wills -- The Fakir -- Readjustment -- House of Offence -- Walking woman. Gold mines and mining; Fiction; Ranch life; Fiction; Western stories
Summary:
The literature of the "Old" West is very old indeed, but stories from the region began to appear only after the Civil War, as the short story emerged as a major literary form and the West emerged as a seperate, distinctly American culture. This collection brings together fifty of the best stories of the Old West by some of America's finest writers. From comic tales about California charlatans and prostitutes with hearts of gold to portrayals of tough, taciturn, and honorable cowboys and heroic cavalrymen; from razor-sharp stories of settlers struggling to survive in a savage land to the rare, sympathetic vision of American Indian culture, this is an indispensable collection of stories from an Old West always partly geographical, partly imagined.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.