The story of the five Marlow brothers and their tribulations in late nineteenth-century Texas is the stuff of Old West legend (and served to inspire the John Wayne movie, The Sons of Katie Elder). Violent, full of intrigue, with characters of amazing heroism and deplorable cowardice, their story was first related by William Rathmell in Life of the Marlows, a little book published in 1892, shortly after the events it described in Young County, Texas. It told how Boone, the most reckless of ...

This in-depth collection, unchanged since the 1940s, tells of the most legendary heroes and villains of the Old West. Get swept back to a time when sheriffs did their best to keep order in a lawless land. Read about the likes of Tom Horn, the “Apache Kid,” “Bucky” O’Neill, Tom Nickson, and many more!Famous Sheriffs and Western Outlaws is a classic for everyone interested in history and what is was like in the Old West. The detail of every story grabs the attention of the r...

This New York Times' bestseller features the West’s most prominent lawmen and criminals, who tell their stories of fight, death, and survival.In the romantic narrative of the Old West, two larger-than-life characters emerged as the perfect foils for each other-the rampant outlaw and the heroic peace officer. Without the villain, sheriffs would not have needed to uphold the law; and without the sheriff, villains would have had no law to break. Together, bot...

On 14 May 1804, one Captain Meriwether Lewis and his companion William Clark led a thirty-three-man expedition to the new lands of Louisiana. 8,000 miles and two years later, after rafting up the Missouri and crossing the Rocky Mountains, they reached the far side of the world, the Pacific Ocean.Fredrick Nolan explores the first US settlers of the American West, including the remarkable stories of unsung heroes and heroines, the bloody battles between settlers and the native Americ...

The New York Times BestsellerWinner of the Texas Institute of Letters's Carr P. Collins AwardOne of Book Riot's Best Books of the YearIn nineteenth-century Austin, Texas, a ruthless murderer terrorized the city in what would soon become a story more shocking than any fiction.In the late 1800s, just as Austin was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a ...

The instant New York Times bestseller!Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long, Dodge City’s streets were lined with saloons and brothels and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge C...

The latest addition to TouchWood Editions’ Classics West Collection, Klondike Cattle Drive is the colourful tale of a formidable trek undertaken by legendary Cariboo rancher Norman Lee.In 1898, Lee set out to drive 200 head of cattle from his home in the Chilcotin area of B.C. to the Klondike goldfields—a distance of 1,500 miles. He was gambling both his cattle and his life. This is his story, derived from the journal he kept, his letters and the loyal men who accompanied ...

Shot All to Hell by Mark Lee Gardner recounts the thrilling life of Jesse James, Frank James, the Younger brothers, and the most famous bank robbery of all time.Follow the Wild West’s most celebrated gang of outlaws as they step inside Northfield’s First National Bank and back out on the streets to square off with heroic citizens who risked their lives to defend justice in Minnesota.With compelling details that chronicle the two-week chase that followed—the near misses, the...

The essential biography of the legendary Old West outlaw as told by the man who shot him—a true classic of Western literature.Henry McCarty, popularly known as Billy the Kid, was one of the most archetypal gunslingers of the American West. Throughout the course of his short but eventful life, he terrorized large areas of the New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico, stealing cattle, killing law officers and repeatedly escaping from justice.In 1878 the Lincol...

“Countless books have been written about the infamous outlaw ... this is surely one of the best.”—Publishers Weekly, starred reviewIn this revisionist biography, award-winning historian Michael Wallis re-creates the rich anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859–1881), a young man who became a legend in his time and remains an enigma to this day. In an extraordinary evocation of the legendary Old West, Wallis demonstrates why the Kid has remained one of our most popular folk h...

Forget Doris Day singing on the stagecoach. Forget Robin Weigert’s gritty portrayal on HBO’s Deadwood. The real Calamity Jane was someone the likes of whom you’ve never encountered. That is, until now.This book is a definitive biography of Martha Canary, the woman popularly known as Calamity Jane. Written by one of today’s foremost authorities on this notorious character, it is a meticulously researched account of how an alcoholic prostitute was transformed into a Wild Wes...

The diaries and letters of women who braved the overland trails during the great nineteenth-century westward migration are treasured documents in the study of the American West. These eight firsthand accounts are among the best ever written. They were selected for the power with which they portray the hardship, adventure, and boundless love for friends and family that characterized the overland experience. Some were written with the skilled pens of educated women. Others bear the marks of ...