[ THE RIVER OF THE WEST: THE ADVENTURES OF JOE MEEK; THE MOUNTAIN YEARS - GREENLIGHT Paperback ] Victor, Francis F ( AUTHOR ) Jan - 01 - 2011 [ Paperback ]

by Frances Fuller Victor

Joe Meek is one of the West's irresistible characters dashing, devil-may-care, cheeky, irreverent, more fun than a playful grizzly cub. Unlike so many of the West's other great characters, he comes down to us not as a myth, says the editor, but as "simply a right kind of fella." It is our good luck that Joe knew how to yarn his mountain experiences truly and colorfully and with only a mite of stretching, and that he happened to cross trails with Frances Fuller Victor, who had the sense to see the worth of his tale as Joe told it, in the raw.
The first of two volumes of "The River of the West" deals with Joe's years as one of the legendary mountain men, the fur trappers of the Rocky Mountains.


A facsimile of the original edition published in 1870, this reissue includes the original illustrations and offers a new introduction, map, notes, bibliography, and index.

Genres: Westerns

292 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011

About the author

Victor, Frances Auretta (Fuller) Barrett, Mrs., 1826-1902. [from old catalog]
Victor, Frances Fuller, 1826-1902
from Library of Congress website

Reviews

[Daniel Callister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completely enjoyable. This is an account of mountain main Joe Meek's life as a fur trapper in the 1830s. The author interviewed Joe Meek personally when writing this book and much of it is in Meek's own words. It's pretty much a collection of quick anecdotes and adventures. It's an absolute miracle that Meek survived if each of these stories is true. For about 10 years his life was on the line daily whether due to bear attacks, skirmishes with natives, starvation, freezing to death, or something else. The book is fun to just pick up, flip open to any random page and read a quick 1- or 2-page adventure that somehow Meek manages to escape from with his life. Lots of other famous names you'll recognize in this book with whom Meek rubbed shoulders.

The editor's notes at the end of the book were helpful to correct many of the inaccuracies in Ms Victor's accounts.