No, I haven’t abandoned my series on the Western genre. Life has just kept getting in the way of my sitting down and writing the next post. It’s coming, though—in Part III I’ll be taking a look at the movies Four Faces West (1946), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), and how even an “accurate” film adaptation can convey a very different mood and message than the story it was based on.
Meanwhile…in my earlier posts I’ve frequently mentioned reading firsthand accounts that have shaped my knowledge of the Old West. Since today’s Top Ten Tuesday is a fill-in-the-blank theme of ten recommendations in a genre (or of a certain type of book, or for a certain reader’s tastes), I thought I’d do up a list of my favorite Western memoirs for anybody who’s interested in following the sources I’ve quoted or getting into the subject.
No Life For a Lady by Agnes Morley Cleaveland
Possibly my personal favorite on the list—Agnes Morley Cleaveland grew up helping her widowed mother and two younger siblings run a New Mexico ranch from the time she was a young girl in the 1880s, and her memoir paints a lively and entertaining picture of the time, the place, and the people.
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers by Ralph Moody
This was a read-aloud that my whole family loved years ago. Moody’s New England family moved to Colorado in the early 1900s, and their adventures with weather, horses, cowboys, haying, land disputes and more make for engrossing reading. Moody went on to write a whole series based on his growing-up years, most of which are set in the West—the third book, The Home Ranch, is particularly good too.
Land of the Burnt Thigh by Edith Eudora Kohl
Not counting Little Britches, this was the first book off this list that I read, and it absolutely captivated me. This one recounts the experiences of two sisters homesteading by themselves in South Dakota in 1907, surviving everything from prairie fires to blizzards, eventually running a newspaper and trading post, and witnessing one of the last great land rushes. See my review here.
A Bride Goes West by Nannie Tiffany Alderson
I never got around to reviewing this one, but it’s well worth a read—the story of a Southern-bred woman who moved to Montana as a new bride in the early 1880s, to live in a two-room shack—with little to no idea of how to keep house! Her stories of life on the prairie, the sometimes friendly but often touchy relationships with neighboring Indians, and especially of the loyal cowboys who took her under their wing and taught her about Western life, make for a fascinating read.
Stirrup High by Walt Coburn
This lightly-fictionalized memoir comes at the other end of ranching days in Montana—Coburn, the youngest son of a wealthy rancher, narrates the story of his participation in one of the last big open-range roundups in the early 1900s. If you loved Little Britches you’ll probably like this one too.
No Time on My Hands by Grace Snyder
Grace Snyder’s family moved to western Nebraska when she was a small child—her autobiography is full of details about settlers’ everyday lives, her experiences teaching a frontier school, her eventual marriage to a cowboy-turned-rancher in 1903, and their experiences with ranch life in the sandhills all the way up into the 1950s.
High, Wide and Lonesome by Hal Borland
A bit similar to Little Britches, in that it’s a story of Colorado homesteading in the early 20th century told from a young boy’s perspective—but it has its own style and its own set of characters, and its own set of challenges and hardships for them to face.
A Tenderfoot Bride by Clarice E. Richards
Another story of an Eastern-bred bride moving West, this time to a ranch in Colorado in 1900—every bit as entertaining as the others on this list.
…and two I haven’t read yet
Of the wide variety of cowboy memoirs that I haven’t gotten around to yet, these two seem to be among the best-known and most frequently referenced. I’ve had Log of a Cowboy (which is in the public-domain and free) on my Kindle for a long time, and one of these days I am going to get to it!
For literally dozens more memoirs, journals and diaries, and collections of letters from the Old West, check out this Goodreads list that I’ve compiled. There are so many titles on there that look fascinating, by ranchers, cowboys, ranchers’ wives, frontier soldiers’ wives and daughters, homesteaders, and more.
Marie @ Book-Chatter says
What a fun and unique topic! I can’t say I’ve ever read an Old West memoir.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
Thanks! If you’re interested in the West at all, memoirs like this are really a delight.
Kate says
Aaah! Thank you, thank you for writing this list! I love Old West memoirs, but have only read one on your list (I own an old 1950s-ish copy of “Log of a Cowboy,” but haven’t read it, either. I had no idea it was well-known!). My dad read “Little Britches” aloud to my sisters and I when we were little; maybe that’s why I love the American frontier so. My favorite “memoir”–which is actually a journal, so I’m not sure it counts–is “Mollie” by Mollie Dorsey Sanford. It’s remarkably hard to get ahold of, but I was really amazed by how readable and human its writing was.
By the way, I picked up “The Mountain of the Wolf” a few days ago and was very much impressed by the brevity and carefulness of your writing (and by your ability to tell such a somber, almost haunting story, and then turn around and write something splendidly light like “A Sidekick’s Tale”!). It was a delight to read. I feel that so many people write only for the sake of storytelling, and pay no attention to the words themselves. Thank you for treating writing as the craft that it is.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
I can’t recall if I’d heard of Mollie before, though something about the name sounds familiar, but I just looked it up and it sounds great!
Oh, my—what wonderful compliments. Thank you so much.
Lauren @ Always Me says
I haven’t read too many westerns, but I’ve seen a lot of western movies. I love both versions of 3:10 to Yuma and the new version of True Grit. One of my new favorite westerns that is YA is easily Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman – if you like True Grit you might like it too. 🙂
Check out my TTT and my current giveaway
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
Oh yes, I’ve seen a lot of Western movies too! I just watched the original 3:10 to Yuma for the purposes of comparing it to the original short story (upcoming blog post!). I haven’t read True Grit yet, though I’ve thought about it, and I’ve heard of Vengeance Road too.
Aj @ Read All The Things! says
Interesting! I haven’t read many Westerns, but maybe I should read more of them. Some of these sound good.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
Glad you enjoyed the post! I definitely found these books as interesting and fun to read as any Western fiction.
Annie says
I’ve read four on your list:
Little Britches (and the rest of the series)
No Life For A Lady (my copy is falling to pieces through so much use!)
A Bride Goes West
The Log Of A Cowboy
All of them were enjoyable, but Little Britches is my all time favorite western memoir. All of the others, except “We Pointed Them North” are already on my mental to-read list. 🙂
One of my other favorites that isn’t on this list is “Letters Of A Woman Homesteader” by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, it’s a wonderful book. If you haven’t read it, you should find a copy!
A wonderfully fun list!
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
Oh, yes—Letters of a Woman Homesteader almost made this list! I’ve read it and the sequel, Letters on an Elk Hunt.
hopeinbrazil says
Thank you for this lovely list. I just finished A Bride Goes West and it piqued my interest for more reading in this genre.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
You’re very welcome! I bet you’ll enjoy some of these others if you liked A Bride Goes West.
Michael Reed says
Great list of book suggestions. I’ve just received two books of life on the prairie:
1. Boots and Saddles: Or Life in Dakota with General Custer by his wife Elizabeth Bacon Custer.
2. My Life on the Plains by George Armstrong Custer
Both these look good in review and hopefully they turn out that way.
Have you an updated list of books or memoirs of the western prairie or plains?
PS I just commented on the Hal Taliferro article and gave you a new email.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
I don’t think I’ve done another list on my blog, but the Goodreads list I linked to at the end of this post has over 200 titles on it! I can say, though, that the best memoir I’ve read since doing this post is The Diary of a Dude Wrangler by Maxwell Struthers Burt (and then probably Vanished Arizona by Martha Summerhayes).