Edward Zane Carroll Judson aka Ned Buntline (1821–1886) was responsible for creating a highly romantic and often misleading image of the American West, albeit one that the masses found irresistible in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Some scholars estimate that he wrote at least four hundred dime novels over his lifetime, and perhaps as many as six hundred.While he is best known for discovering William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) and making the irrepressible scout a star, Juds...

Today, most remember “California Girl” Lillian Frances Smith (1871–1930) as Annie Oakley’s chief competitor in the small world of the Wild West shows’ female shooters. But the two women were quite different: Oakley’s conservative “prairie beauty” persona clashed with Smith’s tendency to wear flashy clothes and keep company with the cowboys and American Indians she performed with. This lively first biography chronicles the Wild West showbiz life that Smith led and explores the talents that ...

In 1900, the young and beautiful Leonel Ross Campbell became the first female reporter to work for the Denver Post.As the journalist known as Polly Pry, she ruffled feathers when she worked to free a convicted cannibal and when she battled the powerful Telluride miners’ union. She was nearly murdered more than once. And a younger female colleague once said, “Polly Pry did not just report the news, she made it!”If only that young reporter had known how true her words were. Polly Pry ...

Edward Zane Carroll Judson aka Ned Buntline (1821–1886) was responsible for creating a highly romantic and often misleading image of the American West, albeit one that the masses found irresistible in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Some scholars estimate that he wrote at least four hundred dime novels over his lifetime, and perhaps as many as six hundred. While he is best known for discovering William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) and making the irrepressible scout a star, Judson—by t...

Nineteen-year-old Burmah Adams, a hairdresser and former Santa Ana High School student, spent her honeymoon on a crime spree. She and her husband of less than one week, White, an ex-con, robbed at least twenty people in and around downtown L.A. at gunpoint over an eight-week period. But the worst of their crimes was the shooting of a popular elementary school teacher, Cora Withington, and a former publisher, Crombie Allen, who was teaching her how to drive his new car.A few days la...

Nineteen-year-old Burmah Adams, a hairdresser and former Santa Ana High School student, spent her honeymoon on a crime spree. She and her husband of less than one week, White, an ex-con, robbed at least twenty people in and around downtown L.A. at gunpoint over an eight-week period. But the worst of their crimes was the shooting of a popular elementary school teacher, Cora Withington, and a former publisher, Crombie Allen, who was teaching her how to drive his new car.A few days la...

In 1950, facing artistic and legal persecution by Senator Joe McCarthy because of her inclusion on Louis Budenz’s list of four hundred concealed communists, single mother Hannah Weinstein fled to Europe. There, she built a television studio and established her own production company, Sapphire Films, then surreptitiously hired scores of such blacklisted writers as Waldo Salt, Ian McLellan Hunter, Adrian Scott, and Ring Lardner Jr., and “Trojan-horsed” democratic ideals back to the United St...

Unveil the untold story of trailblazing educator Mary Rippon in this updated edition, featuring two new chapters revealing her enduring legacy.A pioneer woman educator in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century academia, Mary Rippon was the first female professor at the University of Colorado and is believed to have been the first woman in the United States to teach at a state university. Mary received wide acclaim for her teaching, but Victorian society for...

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...

Cowboy and drifter Frank Clifford lived a lot of lives—and raised a lot of hell—in the first quarter of his life. The number of times he changed his name—Clifford being just one of them—suggests that he often traveled just steps ahead of the law. During the 1870s and 1880s his restless spirit led him all over the Southwest, crossing the paths of many of the era’s most notorious characters, most notably Clay Allison and Billy the Kid.More than just an entertaining and informative na...

From the most prolific author to write on all things Western, Larry McMurtry follows the rise of international celebrity "Buffalo" Bill Cody, tracker, part-time Indian scout and showman, and his most famous and celebrated star, Annie Oakley, the gifted woman sharpshooter, and how they became the first of America's great superstars.From the early 1800s to the end of his life in 1917, Buffalo Bill Cody was as famous as anyone could b...

Larry McMurtry’s fascinating and surprisingly intimate memoir of his lifelong passion of buying, selling, and collecting rare antiquarian books is “a necessary and marvelous gift” (San Antonio Express-News).Spanning a lifetime of literary achievement, Larry McMurtry has succeeded at a wide variety of genres, from coming-of-age novels, such as The Last Picture Show; to essays, like those in In a Narrow Grave;to the reinvention of the “West...