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A Century of Great Western Stories: An Anthology of Western Fiction
John Jakes is the New York Times 1 bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as North and South and The Kent Family Chronicles A Century of Great Western Stories is a retrospective of Western writing over the past hundred years showing the evolution of the genre as well as a glimpse into what the future might hold for Western fiction John Jakes 1 New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical novels as North and South and The Kent Family Chronicles has long been both a fan and a distinguished author of novels and stories of the American West Now with the turning of the millennium he has compiled in one volume a century s worth of his favorite Western fiction To illustrate the evolution of the genre Jakes has included such legendary authors as Owen Wister Louis L Amour and Zane Grey along side their more contemporary peers such as Loren Estleman and Elmer Kelton While the stories have changed over the years certain timeless themes of Western fiction remain constant At the heart of the stories are ideas that have become synonymous with the American dream the frontier spirit individual freedoms and man s relationship with the land A Century of Great Western Stories is essentially a retrospective of western writing over the past century but Jakes also sets out to give readers a glimpse of what the future might hold for western fiction While trends in publishing might not always be promising the current crop of contemporary Western authors show that the old west will always have a place in the world of fiction Like the American dream which it celebrates Western fiction will perservere
525 pages, Paperback
First published April 22, 2000
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About the author
John Jakes
412 books965 followersJohn William Jakes, the author of more than a dozen novels, is regarded as one of today’s most distinguished writers of historical fiction. His work includes the highly acclaimed Kent Family Chronicles series and the North and South Trilogy. Jakes’s commitment to historical accuracy and evocative storytelling earned him the title of “the godfather of historical novelists” from the Los Angeles Times and led to a streak of sixteen consecutive New York Times bestsellers. Jakes has received several awards for his work and is a member of the Authors Guild and the PEN American Center. He and his wife, Rachel, live on the west coast of Florida.
Also writes under pseudonyms Jay Scotland, Alan Payne, Rachel Ann Payne, Robert Hart Davis, Darius John Granger, John Lee Gray. Has ghost written as William Ard.
Also writes under pseudonyms Jay Scotland, Alan Payne, Rachel Ann Payne, Robert Hart Davis, Darius John Granger, John Lee Gray. Has ghost written as William Ard.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 6, 2025
Popular American author John Jakes got his start writing short Western fiction, and never lost his interest in and affection for the genre. Looking back over the span of the 20th century at the dawn of the 21st, and at a time when the demise of general circulation magazines and other factors had drastically curtailed the market for Western short stories, he assembled this collection of 30 tales, by as many authors (including himself), as a celebration of the best fiction the tradition has to offer. (He was assisted in the selection by veteran anthologist Martin Greenberg and by fellow author John Helfers, so his assessment of the quality of the material isn't entirely idiosyncratic.) His two introductory pieces, the Introduction or "What Happened to the Western?" which both analyzes the current diminished state of the genre and speculates about the prospects for its enduring survival and future directions (drawing upon, for the latter, the thoughts of a number of current Western writers) and the much-shorter Preface, which briefly sketches the genre's roots in the 19th-century dime novels, are spoiler-free. At nearly 90 pages, one selection here, Wolf Moon by Ed Gorman, is really a short novel, and was originally published as one. (I've treated it by itself in a separate review.) The only story here I'd previously read is the lead one, Louis L'Amour's outstanding "The Gift of Cochise" (which I've commented on elsewhere). So virtually all of the material here was new to me; and more than half of the authors are ones whose work I hadn't previously read, and in a number of cases had never heard of before. (My review doesn't discuss all of the stories individually, but does comment on most of them.)
This anthology mines territory similar to that of Jon Tuska's Shadow of the Lariat: A Treasury of the Frontier, though Jakes' chronological range is broader than the 1920-1961 one covered in that book. Seven authors --Zane Grey, Max Brand, Les Savage Jr., Ernest Haycox, Frank Bonham, Luke Short, and Dan Cushman-- are represented in both collections, but by different stories, so there's no overlap at all in content. Some defects of this collection, compared to Tuska's, are that the arrangement of the stories is not chronological (indeed, there doesn't really seem to be any principle guiding the arrangement), publication dates aren't usually given with the selections, though copyright dates for most of them are listed in the front matter, and the author introductions preceding each story are only single short paragraphs. More seriously, the Gorman novella and the Evans story (see below), for me, dragged down the overall average rating of the stories. But the excellent quality of the rest allowed for a five-star rating (rounded up) for the book. And on the plus side here, while Tuska's book doesn't include any female authors, Jakes included three. Both the writers and readers in this genre have historically been overwhelmingly male; 90% of those represented here are men, but I appreciated the effort to represent women's contribution to the genre. (Many of the stories here --and actually, in both anthologies-- present strong and admirable female characters who earn respect from readers and fellow characters alike.)
To consider the distaff contributions first, Marcia Muller's "Sweet Cactus Wine" (1982), set in the Arizona desert country in the early 1900s, would have made a great selection for the anthology Just Desserts. (The same could also be said for "The Burial of Letty Strayhorn" by four-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton.) Like Peggy Simson Curry's 1959 story "Geranium House," it's a deeply thought-provoking story, which tests and challenges our understandings of right and wrong. IMO, neither tale "result[s] in a blatant subversion of morality", though another reviewer used that language; they simply present stories of human behavior that could realistically happen in an unusual (but far from impossible) situation, and invite us as the readers to bring our own moral judgment to bear on it. That sort of experiment in the moral imagination is inherently the stuff of serious literature. (I felt the same way about another selection criticized on the same grounds by that reviewer, Evan Hunter's "The Killing at Triple Tree," where our main character is a marshal whose young wife was brutally raped and murdered, and who's now obliged to lead the manhunt for the thug who did it. It's a harrowing practical exploration of the ethics of justice, but no spoilers here. Hunter is best known under his Ed McBain pen name, as an author of police procedurals, I've read none of his work in that vein, but read his novel Last Summer when it was published in 1968. That book is very different from "The Killing at Triple Tree;" but the two works share an intensely grim vision of human moral darkness, though not from a premise that applauds darkness.) My Goodreads friend Debbie Zapata is a fan of the Western writings of Bertha Muzzy Bower (1871-1940), so I recognized her name here. She's represented by "The Lamb of the Flying U," one of many works she wrote about everyday cowboy life on a fictional Montana ranch. (Having grown up on a real one, she was writing about what she knew.) This tale of attempted hazing of a new hand whom the older ones mistakenly assume to be effeminate and incompetent is humorous in intent, but for me somewhat marred by my basic contempt for the warped attitudes demonstrated by the smug in-group here. (If they'd been working for me, they'd have been looking for a new job.)
Several stories are drawn from the earliest generation (except for the "dime novel" authors) of Western writers. Published in 1908, Owen Wister's "Timberline" is the oldest of the stories that has a definite date. (The title is actually the nickname of the character of whom this tale is essentially a character study.) Wister does an excellent job here of evoking a sense of place in the Rocky Mountain high country, makes good use of the electrical phenomena of a high-altitude lightning storm. and shows his mastery of the surprise ending technique, done rightly. (His landmark Western novel The Virginian is on my to-read shelf.) One of the longest stories, "Tappan's Burro" by Zane Grey, about the bond between a prospector and his donkey, is also one of the most powerful and poignant. Jack London's "All Gold Canyon," which has one of the most sensuously beautiful descriptions of unspoiled nature that I've read in any genre, also has a prospector for its protagonist, and benefits from the author's detailed knowledge of mining and prospecting procedures --but before it's over, more will be going on than just prospecting. "The Weight of Obligation," by now little-known author Rex Beach, is set in the frozen North of Alaska during the Gold Rush days (like his contemporary London, Beach took part in the latter, though he would outlive him by over 30 years). Arguably, that setting isn't what most readers view as the true locale for a Western; but it's a gripping story of men vs. nature, as well as a serious psychological study.
German writer Karl May (1842-1912) isn't well known to American readers, since few if any of his books have ever been translated into English. But his 40 Western novels featuring his iconic hero Old Shatterhand (also nicknamed Old Surehand and Old Firehand) and the latter's Indian sidekick Winnetou were, and still are, highly popular with readers in German and other European languages. (I'd heard of him and his series character from reading a secondary account of him some years ago, though I don't remember where, but haven't read anything by him.) He's not directly represented in this collection. But Jakes' "Manitow and Ironhand," set in the "Stony Mountains" (as May sometimes designated the Rockies) in 1833, and featuring title characters who are fur trappers, is "Dedicated to the memory of Karl May," and its heroes are inspired by May's own, though it's more of a homage than an actual pastiche. (Jakes' two-page Afterword gives more info on May, and on the similarities and differences of this story and the May corpus.) One of the longer tales in this anthology, this was definitely one of my favorites, despite the fact that the principal villain is a sanctimonious hypocrite who pretends to be a Christian. Unlike at least one reviewer, I didn't view Jakes' purpose here as slurring Christianity itself, though I might be mistaken. (Another of my favorite selections here, Savage's 1951 story "King of the Buckskin Breed," is also set in the milieu of 1830s Rocky Mountain fur trapping.)
Other stories also feature interactions between Anglos and Native Americans, but the authors develop that theme in very different ways. Haycox's "Stage to Lordsburg" (which was later adapted in the classic film Stagecoach) is the most traditional, following a disparate group of men and women in a two-day horsedrawn journey over mostly empty land being scoured by Apache war parties. In "Sergeant Houck," Jack Schaefer (best known as the author of the landmark 1949 Western novel Shane) explores the challenges faced by a returning married woman who's been for three years a captive among the Indians --and who's bringing with her the son she bore to a brave who bought her from her original captors as a slave. Glendon Swarthout is best known for his Western novel The Shootist (1975), for which he won the Spur Award. His "The Attack on the Mountain" is set in Arizona in the 1880s, against the background of the warfare between the Army and the Apaches, and is also one of my favorites here. Finally, "The Shaming of Broken Horn" (1960) by Bill Gulick, set in the days of wagon-train travel, has a brave and resourceful female protagonist and packs a feminist message at a time when the gene wasn't known for that. (The portrayal of Native Americans in all of these tales is realistic rather than racist, but none of the authors subscribe to "noble savage" mythology.)
Though they're very different stories, "The Tin Star" by John M. Cunningham and "Killers' Country!" by Dan Cushman both represent the violent action-centered tradition of the mid-century pulps (the titular "country" of the latter is both geographical and metaphorical). But both are also serious stories about what matters in life and emotionally evocative in powerful ways. The selection here by Max Brand (whose real name was Frederick Faust) is "Wine on the Desert." It features a totally despicable protagonist, guilty of murder and on the run ahead of a posse, who's quite confident that he's got a fool-proof plan for a clean get away (but has he?). Luke Short's title character in "Top Hand" is a "kid" perhaps in his late teens (older than 17, by his own statement), and older folks in the town he's just ridden into are skeptical of his "top hand" claim ...but a chance to prove himself might come sooner than expected. In "The Trouble Man," Eugene Manlove Rhodes makes brilliant use of the surprise ending technique, in a story set in New Mexico against the background of strife between cowboys and sheepherders.
A more modern story by Bill Pronzini (who is married to Muller, though Jakes doesn't mention that fact, and like her writes in both the mystery and Western genres), "Fear" (1995) is serious and evocative, and takes its premise in an unexpected direction. "Hell on the Draw" (1989) by Loren D. Estleman is arguably out of place in this anthology, since its supernatural and SF premises place it more in the "Weird West" subgenre (and it's more than a little dubious theologically!); but it holds interest, and makes very good use of the surprise ending device.
The only outstandingly bad selection here is "Candles in the Bottom of the Pool" by Max Evans. I started to just skim the latter after only a few pages, because I found all the characters unlikable and wasn't enjoying it, but it didn't take long to make me quite glad that I didn't actually read it. This one, set somewhere in the Southwest in the author's 1973 present, isn't a Western by any definition other than the ridiculous one of "any work set west of the Mississippi, in any time period." (By that yardstick, for example, both The Maltese Falcon and Twilight are "Westerns;" any "definition" that broad is obviously useless for serious purposes.) But that's far from being the biggest problem with that selection. It's a genuinely repulsive, ugly and morally sick story, which makes Jakes' extravagant praise for the author incomprehensible. (Whether the protagonist's "visions" of supposed scenes from regional history are meant to be understood as supernatural or as a madman's hallucinations is unclear, but I frankly didn't care.) But despite this turkey, my overall assessment of this collection is very positive, and I recommend it to genre fans.
This anthology mines territory similar to that of Jon Tuska's Shadow of the Lariat: A Treasury of the Frontier, though Jakes' chronological range is broader than the 1920-1961 one covered in that book. Seven authors --Zane Grey, Max Brand, Les Savage Jr., Ernest Haycox, Frank Bonham, Luke Short, and Dan Cushman-- are represented in both collections, but by different stories, so there's no overlap at all in content. Some defects of this collection, compared to Tuska's, are that the arrangement of the stories is not chronological (indeed, there doesn't really seem to be any principle guiding the arrangement), publication dates aren't usually given with the selections, though copyright dates for most of them are listed in the front matter, and the author introductions preceding each story are only single short paragraphs. More seriously, the Gorman novella and the Evans story (see below), for me, dragged down the overall average rating of the stories. But the excellent quality of the rest allowed for a five-star rating (rounded up) for the book. And on the plus side here, while Tuska's book doesn't include any female authors, Jakes included three. Both the writers and readers in this genre have historically been overwhelmingly male; 90% of those represented here are men, but I appreciated the effort to represent women's contribution to the genre. (Many of the stories here --and actually, in both anthologies-- present strong and admirable female characters who earn respect from readers and fellow characters alike.)
To consider the distaff contributions first, Marcia Muller's "Sweet Cactus Wine" (1982), set in the Arizona desert country in the early 1900s, would have made a great selection for the anthology Just Desserts. (The same could also be said for "The Burial of Letty Strayhorn" by four-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton.) Like Peggy Simson Curry's 1959 story "Geranium House," it's a deeply thought-provoking story, which tests and challenges our understandings of right and wrong. IMO, neither tale "result[s] in a blatant subversion of morality", though another reviewer used that language; they simply present stories of human behavior that could realistically happen in an unusual (but far from impossible) situation, and invite us as the readers to bring our own moral judgment to bear on it. That sort of experiment in the moral imagination is inherently the stuff of serious literature. (I felt the same way about another selection criticized on the same grounds by that reviewer, Evan Hunter's "The Killing at Triple Tree," where our main character is a marshal whose young wife was brutally raped and murdered, and who's now obliged to lead the manhunt for the thug who did it. It's a harrowing practical exploration of the ethics of justice, but no spoilers here. Hunter is best known under his Ed McBain pen name, as an author of police procedurals, I've read none of his work in that vein, but read his novel Last Summer when it was published in 1968. That book is very different from "The Killing at Triple Tree;" but the two works share an intensely grim vision of human moral darkness, though not from a premise that applauds darkness.) My Goodreads friend Debbie Zapata is a fan of the Western writings of Bertha Muzzy Bower (1871-1940), so I recognized her name here. She's represented by "The Lamb of the Flying U," one of many works she wrote about everyday cowboy life on a fictional Montana ranch. (Having grown up on a real one, she was writing about what she knew.) This tale of attempted hazing of a new hand whom the older ones mistakenly assume to be effeminate and incompetent is humorous in intent, but for me somewhat marred by my basic contempt for the warped attitudes demonstrated by the smug in-group here. (If they'd been working for me, they'd have been looking for a new job.)
Several stories are drawn from the earliest generation (except for the "dime novel" authors) of Western writers. Published in 1908, Owen Wister's "Timberline" is the oldest of the stories that has a definite date. (The title is actually the nickname of the character of whom this tale is essentially a character study.) Wister does an excellent job here of evoking a sense of place in the Rocky Mountain high country, makes good use of the electrical phenomena of a high-altitude lightning storm. and shows his mastery of the surprise ending technique, done rightly. (His landmark Western novel The Virginian is on my to-read shelf.) One of the longest stories, "Tappan's Burro" by Zane Grey, about the bond between a prospector and his donkey, is also one of the most powerful and poignant. Jack London's "All Gold Canyon," which has one of the most sensuously beautiful descriptions of unspoiled nature that I've read in any genre, also has a prospector for its protagonist, and benefits from the author's detailed knowledge of mining and prospecting procedures --but before it's over, more will be going on than just prospecting. "The Weight of Obligation," by now little-known author Rex Beach, is set in the frozen North of Alaska during the Gold Rush days (like his contemporary London, Beach took part in the latter, though he would outlive him by over 30 years). Arguably, that setting isn't what most readers view as the true locale for a Western; but it's a gripping story of men vs. nature, as well as a serious psychological study.
German writer Karl May (1842-1912) isn't well known to American readers, since few if any of his books have ever been translated into English. But his 40 Western novels featuring his iconic hero Old Shatterhand (also nicknamed Old Surehand and Old Firehand) and the latter's Indian sidekick Winnetou were, and still are, highly popular with readers in German and other European languages. (I'd heard of him and his series character from reading a secondary account of him some years ago, though I don't remember where, but haven't read anything by him.) He's not directly represented in this collection. But Jakes' "Manitow and Ironhand," set in the "Stony Mountains" (as May sometimes designated the Rockies) in 1833, and featuring title characters who are fur trappers, is "Dedicated to the memory of Karl May," and its heroes are inspired by May's own, though it's more of a homage than an actual pastiche. (Jakes' two-page Afterword gives more info on May, and on the similarities and differences of this story and the May corpus.) One of the longer tales in this anthology, this was definitely one of my favorites, despite the fact that the principal villain is a sanctimonious hypocrite who pretends to be a Christian. Unlike at least one reviewer, I didn't view Jakes' purpose here as slurring Christianity itself, though I might be mistaken. (Another of my favorite selections here, Savage's 1951 story "King of the Buckskin Breed," is also set in the milieu of 1830s Rocky Mountain fur trapping.)
Other stories also feature interactions between Anglos and Native Americans, but the authors develop that theme in very different ways. Haycox's "Stage to Lordsburg" (which was later adapted in the classic film Stagecoach) is the most traditional, following a disparate group of men and women in a two-day horsedrawn journey over mostly empty land being scoured by Apache war parties. In "Sergeant Houck," Jack Schaefer (best known as the author of the landmark 1949 Western novel Shane) explores the challenges faced by a returning married woman who's been for three years a captive among the Indians --and who's bringing with her the son she bore to a brave who bought her from her original captors as a slave. Glendon Swarthout is best known for his Western novel The Shootist (1975), for which he won the Spur Award. His "The Attack on the Mountain" is set in Arizona in the 1880s, against the background of the warfare between the Army and the Apaches, and is also one of my favorites here. Finally, "The Shaming of Broken Horn" (1960) by Bill Gulick, set in the days of wagon-train travel, has a brave and resourceful female protagonist and packs a feminist message at a time when the gene wasn't known for that. (The portrayal of Native Americans in all of these tales is realistic rather than racist, but none of the authors subscribe to "noble savage" mythology.)
Though they're very different stories, "The Tin Star" by John M. Cunningham and "Killers' Country!" by Dan Cushman both represent the violent action-centered tradition of the mid-century pulps (the titular "country" of the latter is both geographical and metaphorical). But both are also serious stories about what matters in life and emotionally evocative in powerful ways. The selection here by Max Brand (whose real name was Frederick Faust) is "Wine on the Desert." It features a totally despicable protagonist, guilty of murder and on the run ahead of a posse, who's quite confident that he's got a fool-proof plan for a clean get away (but has he?). Luke Short's title character in "Top Hand" is a "kid" perhaps in his late teens (older than 17, by his own statement), and older folks in the town he's just ridden into are skeptical of his "top hand" claim ...but a chance to prove himself might come sooner than expected. In "The Trouble Man," Eugene Manlove Rhodes makes brilliant use of the surprise ending technique, in a story set in New Mexico against the background of strife between cowboys and sheepherders.
A more modern story by Bill Pronzini (who is married to Muller, though Jakes doesn't mention that fact, and like her writes in both the mystery and Western genres), "Fear" (1995) is serious and evocative, and takes its premise in an unexpected direction. "Hell on the Draw" (1989) by Loren D. Estleman is arguably out of place in this anthology, since its supernatural and SF premises place it more in the "Weird West" subgenre (and it's more than a little dubious theologically!); but it holds interest, and makes very good use of the surprise ending device.
The only outstandingly bad selection here is "Candles in the Bottom of the Pool" by Max Evans. I started to just skim the latter after only a few pages, because I found all the characters unlikable and wasn't enjoying it, but it didn't take long to make me quite glad that I didn't actually read it. This one, set somewhere in the Southwest in the author's 1973 present, isn't a Western by any definition other than the ridiculous one of "any work set west of the Mississippi, in any time period." (By that yardstick, for example, both The Maltese Falcon and Twilight are "Westerns;" any "definition" that broad is obviously useless for serious purposes.) But that's far from being the biggest problem with that selection. It's a genuinely repulsive, ugly and morally sick story, which makes Jakes' extravagant praise for the author incomprehensible. (Whether the protagonist's "visions" of supposed scenes from regional history are meant to be understood as supernatural or as a madman's hallucinations is unclear, but I frankly didn't care.) But despite this turkey, my overall assessment of this collection is very positive, and I recommend it to genre fans.
December 17, 2017
It's really hard to properly rate an anthology containing stories by so many (and such widely differing) authors. But based on how I liked the bulk of the stories, I'd give it three stars—and when I tried giving a quick star rating to each story and averaging them out it also came to three stars, so I guess that's accurate.
I had read five of the stories in this collection before: "The Trouble Man" by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, "The Lamb of the Flying U," by B.M. Bower, "Wine on the Desert" by Max Brand, "Stage to Lordsburg" by Ernest Haycox, and "The Tin Star" by John M. Cunningham. Having read plenty of Rhodes, Bower, and Brand, I think the selected stories are good representatives of their best work. "The Trouble Man," in fact, would probably be my pick for favorite story in the anthology. (See the end of this review for an extra note on the Bower story, however.)
Among the new-to-me stories that I liked best were "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour—which I surprisingly may have liked better than the movie and novel that grew out of it, Hondo—"Burn Him Out," by Frank Bonham, "Fear," by Bill Pronzini, "The Weight of Obligation" by Rex Beach, "Top Hand," by Luke Short, "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London, "Gun Job," by Thomas Thompson, and "The Shaming of Broken Horn," by Bill Gulick.
In a sort of second tier, stories that I liked moderately well though not quite as much as my top few: "Killers' Country!" by Dan Cushman, "Sergeant Houck," by Jack Schaefer, "The Guns of William Longley," by Donald Hamilton, "The Attack on the Mountain," by Glendon Swarthout, "The Burial of Letty Strayhorn," by Elmer Kelton, "King of the Buckskin Breed," by Les Savage, Jr.
I did not finish "Wolf Moon" by Ed Gorman or "Candles in the Bottom of the Pool," by Max Evans. Just...no. Also, what the heck? ("Hell on the Draw" by Loren D. Estleman, though quite well written, also falls into the latter category.)
"Manitow and Ironhand," anthology editor John Jakes' contribution, was also well-written and an interesting story, but soured for me by the fact that Jakes, like so many others, chooses to make his villain a vicious, hymn-singing "Christian" religious hypocrite. The author's note explaining how the story was written as a tribute to the works of German author Karl May references the fact that May's original mountain-man hero "lard[ed] his conversations with little sermons about God and Christianity," so it almost feels as if Jakes's tribute deliberately tries to subvert this element.
There are a couple of stories which, while fitting our present-day definitions of Western fiction, seem to take place in a quasi-Western fantasyland that bears little resemblance to the historical American West—a type of story that seems to have become increasingly prevalent over the years, which treats the "Western" merely as a framework against which to play out a cops-and-robbers drama in cowboy hats, rather than a genre of historical fiction dealing with a particular era of American history. "Peace Officer" by Brian Garfield, and to a slightly lesser degree "Gamblin' Man" by Dwight V. Swain, fall into this category. (You might also say that the Estleman's "Hell on the Draw" deliberately takes this view of the Western to its furthest extreme.)
I was rather amazed by several selections in which the stories' twist endings resulted in a blatant subversion of morality: "The Killing at Triple Tree" by Evan Hunter, "Sweet Cactus Wine" by Marcia Muller, and "Geranium House" by Peggy Simson Curry (to its credit, this last is beautifully written—one of the few in this anthology that left me with some desire to look for other work by the author). Curiously enough this includes two out of the three selections in the anthology by women. It may reflect more on the tastes of the editors than the genre as a whole, but many of the selections also had an emphasis on violence or a bleak outlook/ending that wearied me a little after a while (even the otherwise well-crafted selections from Owen Wister and Zane Grey, for example). Very few entries by later authors employ a humorous tone to any notable degree—the only post-1950 stories you could really call fun would be "The Shaming of Broken Horn" and "The Attack on the Mountain" (though the latter can be a little coarse at times, and is also fairly violent at the climax).
Not too surprisingly, a number of stories also make use of a trope that I've written a critical analysis of: portraying the average settler or common man as weak and cowardly and requiring "rescue" by a lawman or gunman. It's rather a shame that this crops out in some stories that otherwise I thought were of top quality—"Gun Job" most, "Top Hand" a bit; and "Peace Officer" as well. Surprisingly it's not so evident in "The Tin Star," even though the latter's movie adaptation High Noon became pretty much the poster child for this trope—in the original short story there doesn't seem to be much of anybody else visible in the town, and the crux of the story is not so much about the marshal searching for help and failing to find it as it's about him turning down a chance to take the easy way out of a tight spot.
The one author whose absence really shocked me was Dorothy M. Johnson. I find it hard to believe you can put together an anthology of 20th-century Western fiction and leave her out; almost any one of her short stories would stand in the top rank over and alongside the selections here. I also thought Elmore Leonard's "3:10 to Yuma," should have been included, but a footnote in the introduction explained that the editors would have included it but were unable to obtain publication rights. Possibly that's what happened regarding Dorothy Johnson's work too. I would also make a case that O. Henry deserves inclusion: of his Western stories, I would choose "Friends in San Rosario."
---------------------------------
A further note on "The Lamb of the Flying U," by B.M. Bower. The version of the story contained in this anthology is noticeably different from that included in Bower's The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories, a collection of short stories featuring the Flying U ranch crew. The explanation for this probably involves a difference between the story as it was published in magazine and book form. Curiously, there appear to be 1903 and 1904 editions of The Lonesome Trail, while most of the stories collected in it made their magazine appearances from 1905 onwards; so it's impossible to tell which version of the story is the original (as of this writing the publication in which they appeared, The Popular Magazine, hasn't been archived online). But in my opinion the version of "The Lamb" in The Lonesome Trail is superior to that in A Century of Great Western Stories—the writing flows much more smoothly, the dialogue is funnier and more inventive and colorful, and the story is longer by a number of entertaining paragraphs in various places. Here's the opening of the story as it appears in Jakes' anthology:
And here's the opening as it appears in The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories:
To add to the confusion, it looks like this livelier version of "The Lamb" was the one used in She Won the West: An Anthology of Western & Frontier Stories by Women, edited by Marcia Muller, one of the authors represented in Jakes' anthology! Anyway, I'd encourage readers to head over to Project Gutenberg or download the free Kindle edition of The Lonesome Trail and read the alternate version for a better example of Bower's skills as a Western writer.
I had read five of the stories in this collection before: "The Trouble Man" by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, "The Lamb of the Flying U," by B.M. Bower, "Wine on the Desert" by Max Brand, "Stage to Lordsburg" by Ernest Haycox, and "The Tin Star" by John M. Cunningham. Having read plenty of Rhodes, Bower, and Brand, I think the selected stories are good representatives of their best work. "The Trouble Man," in fact, would probably be my pick for favorite story in the anthology. (See the end of this review for an extra note on the Bower story, however.)
Among the new-to-me stories that I liked best were "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour—which I surprisingly may have liked better than the movie and novel that grew out of it, Hondo—"Burn Him Out," by Frank Bonham, "Fear," by Bill Pronzini, "The Weight of Obligation" by Rex Beach, "Top Hand," by Luke Short, "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London, "Gun Job," by Thomas Thompson, and "The Shaming of Broken Horn," by Bill Gulick.
In a sort of second tier, stories that I liked moderately well though not quite as much as my top few: "Killers' Country!" by Dan Cushman, "Sergeant Houck," by Jack Schaefer, "The Guns of William Longley," by Donald Hamilton, "The Attack on the Mountain," by Glendon Swarthout, "The Burial of Letty Strayhorn," by Elmer Kelton, "King of the Buckskin Breed," by Les Savage, Jr.
I did not finish "Wolf Moon" by Ed Gorman or "Candles in the Bottom of the Pool," by Max Evans. Just...no. Also, what the heck? ("Hell on the Draw" by Loren D. Estleman, though quite well written, also falls into the latter category.)
"Manitow and Ironhand," anthology editor John Jakes' contribution, was also well-written and an interesting story, but soured for me by the fact that Jakes, like so many others, chooses to make his villain a vicious, hymn-singing "Christian" religious hypocrite. The author's note explaining how the story was written as a tribute to the works of German author Karl May references the fact that May's original mountain-man hero "lard[ed] his conversations with little sermons about God and Christianity," so it almost feels as if Jakes's tribute deliberately tries to subvert this element.
There are a couple of stories which, while fitting our present-day definitions of Western fiction, seem to take place in a quasi-Western fantasyland that bears little resemblance to the historical American West—a type of story that seems to have become increasingly prevalent over the years, which treats the "Western" merely as a framework against which to play out a cops-and-robbers drama in cowboy hats, rather than a genre of historical fiction dealing with a particular era of American history. "Peace Officer" by Brian Garfield, and to a slightly lesser degree "Gamblin' Man" by Dwight V. Swain, fall into this category. (You might also say that the Estleman's "Hell on the Draw" deliberately takes this view of the Western to its furthest extreme.)
I was rather amazed by several selections in which the stories' twist endings resulted in a blatant subversion of morality: "The Killing at Triple Tree" by Evan Hunter, "Sweet Cactus Wine" by Marcia Muller, and "Geranium House" by Peggy Simson Curry (to its credit, this last is beautifully written—one of the few in this anthology that left me with some desire to look for other work by the author). Curiously enough this includes two out of the three selections in the anthology by women. It may reflect more on the tastes of the editors than the genre as a whole, but many of the selections also had an emphasis on violence or a bleak outlook/ending that wearied me a little after a while (even the otherwise well-crafted selections from Owen Wister and Zane Grey, for example). Very few entries by later authors employ a humorous tone to any notable degree—the only post-1950 stories you could really call fun would be "The Shaming of Broken Horn" and "The Attack on the Mountain" (though the latter can be a little coarse at times, and is also fairly violent at the climax).
Not too surprisingly, a number of stories also make use of a trope that I've written a critical analysis of: portraying the average settler or common man as weak and cowardly and requiring "rescue" by a lawman or gunman. It's rather a shame that this crops out in some stories that otherwise I thought were of top quality—"Gun Job" most, "Top Hand" a bit; and "Peace Officer" as well. Surprisingly it's not so evident in "The Tin Star," even though the latter's movie adaptation High Noon became pretty much the poster child for this trope—in the original short story there doesn't seem to be much of anybody else visible in the town, and the crux of the story is not so much about the marshal searching for help and failing to find it as it's about him turning down a chance to take the easy way out of a tight spot.
The one author whose absence really shocked me was Dorothy M. Johnson. I find it hard to believe you can put together an anthology of 20th-century Western fiction and leave her out; almost any one of her short stories would stand in the top rank over and alongside the selections here. I also thought Elmore Leonard's "3:10 to Yuma," should have been included, but a footnote in the introduction explained that the editors would have included it but were unable to obtain publication rights. Possibly that's what happened regarding Dorothy Johnson's work too. I would also make a case that O. Henry deserves inclusion: of his Western stories, I would choose "Friends in San Rosario."
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A further note on "The Lamb of the Flying U," by B.M. Bower. The version of the story contained in this anthology is noticeably different from that included in Bower's The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories, a collection of short stories featuring the Flying U ranch crew. The explanation for this probably involves a difference between the story as it was published in magazine and book form. Curiously, there appear to be 1903 and 1904 editions of The Lonesome Trail, while most of the stories collected in it made their magazine appearances from 1905 onwards; so it's impossible to tell which version of the story is the original (as of this writing the publication in which they appeared, The Popular Magazine, hasn't been archived online). But in my opinion the version of "The Lamb" in The Lonesome Trail is superior to that in A Century of Great Western Stories—the writing flows much more smoothly, the dialogue is funnier and more inventive and colorful, and the story is longer by a number of entertaining paragraphs in various places. Here's the opening of the story as it appears in Jakes' anthology:
"'Scuse me," said a voice behind Chip Bennett, foreman of the Flying U. "Lookin' for men?"
For two days the Flying U herd had grazed within five miles of Dry Lake waiting for boxcars along the Montana Central line, which had never come. Then two of his men had gone to town on a spree and continued missing. They were not top hands, but every hand is vital in shipping time, so Chip had ridden into town to bring them back, or acquire facsimiles thereof.
And here's the opening as it appears in The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories:
When came the famine in stock-cars on the Montana Central, and the Flying U herd had grazed for two days within five miles of Dry Lake, waiting for the promised train of empties, Chip Bennett, lately promoted foreman, felt that he had trouble a-plenty. When, short-handed as he was, two of his cowboys went a-spreeing and a-leisuring in town, with their faces turned from honest toil and their hands manipulating pairs and flushes and face-cards, rather than good "grass" ropes, he was positive that his cup was dripping trouble all round the rim.
To add to the confusion, it looks like this livelier version of "The Lamb" was the one used in She Won the West: An Anthology of Western & Frontier Stories by Women, edited by Marcia Muller, one of the authors represented in Jakes' anthology! Anyway, I'd encourage readers to head over to Project Gutenberg or download the free Kindle edition of The Lonesome Trail and read the alternate version for a better example of Bower's skills as a Western writer.
June 26, 2011
This is a big bulky collection of short stories of the Western genre. Many that were adapted or the screen and became legendary films. Earnest Haycox's "Stage to Lordsburg" became "Stagecoach" which launched the Western movie genre from B films to blockbusters along with catapulting John Wayne to leading man. Another blockbuster came in the form of "The Tin Star" which was retitled "High Noon" and starred Gary Cooper. The editor did a good job of pulling from Western kingpin writers like Louis Lamour and Zane Grey which is a nice touch. The best part of this book is that most of the short stories are hard to find as they were mostly published in old timey newspapers and are now hard to find.
It's a nice book to have if you're looking for just a little something as most of the stories are quite short and of course nothing it too dense. My favorite story has to be Zane Grey's "Tappans Burro" which closes out the book.
It's a nice book to have if you're looking for just a little something as most of the stories are quite short and of course nothing it too dense. My favorite story has to be Zane Grey's "Tappans Burro" which closes out the book.
March 14, 2022
This is an excellent collection of western stories. No purple prose. No pulp fiction. Some of the stories are quiet. Some are reflective. Some have action. Some have surprising twists. All are well written.
The anthology’s introduction by John Jakes is a good brief commentary on the golden age of westerns and state of westerns today. His brief overview of the story’s author at the beginning of each story will provide writers or titles to add to your reading list. Sadly, a number of the novels he calls attention to are out of print or hard to find which I learned from seeking them at my library and various websites.
This is an anthology to be enjoyed by reading one or two stories at a sitting. It’s a nice way to savor these stories. Readers will have their own stories from this collection that they’ll find memorable. Here are some from this reader:
“The Weight of Obligation” by Rex Beach. Set in Alaska, this is a Jack Londonish tale of friendship tested by a strenuous physical ordeal.
“Geranium House” by Peggy Simeon Curry. This is a bittersweet tale of a woman’s struggle of desire for motherhood. A bit of O. Henry. Based on this story, Curry is deserving to be more widely known.
“Sweet Cactus Wine” by Marcia Muller. A satisfying tale of an independent, strong-willed woman confronting a man who doesn’t listen to “no.”
“Stage to Lordsburg” by Ernest Haycox. A character driven, exquisitely descriptive story (as are many of the other stories in this collection) that became John Ford’s movie, Stagecoach.
“The Shaming of Broken Horn” by Bill Gulick. A character driven story of a wagon train that brings a good chuckle.
“The Guns of William Langley” by Donald Hamilton. A tale that could be in an anthology of stories from “The Twilight Zone.”
“Tappan’s Burro” by Zane Grey was a story that was unexpectedly different from previous stories by Grey that I had read. Surprisingly and pleasantly so.
The anthology’s introduction by John Jakes is a good brief commentary on the golden age of westerns and state of westerns today. His brief overview of the story’s author at the beginning of each story will provide writers or titles to add to your reading list. Sadly, a number of the novels he calls attention to are out of print or hard to find which I learned from seeking them at my library and various websites.
This is an anthology to be enjoyed by reading one or two stories at a sitting. It’s a nice way to savor these stories. Readers will have their own stories from this collection that they’ll find memorable. Here are some from this reader:
“The Weight of Obligation” by Rex Beach. Set in Alaska, this is a Jack Londonish tale of friendship tested by a strenuous physical ordeal.
“Geranium House” by Peggy Simeon Curry. This is a bittersweet tale of a woman’s struggle of desire for motherhood. A bit of O. Henry. Based on this story, Curry is deserving to be more widely known.
“Sweet Cactus Wine” by Marcia Muller. A satisfying tale of an independent, strong-willed woman confronting a man who doesn’t listen to “no.”
“Stage to Lordsburg” by Ernest Haycox. A character driven, exquisitely descriptive story (as are many of the other stories in this collection) that became John Ford’s movie, Stagecoach.
“The Shaming of Broken Horn” by Bill Gulick. A character driven story of a wagon train that brings a good chuckle.
“The Guns of William Langley” by Donald Hamilton. A tale that could be in an anthology of stories from “The Twilight Zone.”
“Tappan’s Burro” by Zane Grey was a story that was unexpectedly different from previous stories by Grey that I had read. Surprisingly and pleasantly so.
May 7, 2024
Tracking a genre over time can provide interesting insights into the overarching public understanding and sentiment towards the topic. Here is no different, we see the glorification of the Western traveler, the heroification of cowboys and sheriffs, and the vilification then personification of Native Americans.
As the century of these writings marches on, we see molds built, used, and broken time and time again - a fun study, yes, but at times a bit slow and repetitive with its continued cycles.
For those looking for an introduction to the genre and the authors who create in that space, this serves as a great resource. Jakes highlights each author’s background, contributions, and the subsequent public sentiment and film/television adaptations of their work. Will be coming back to my copy often when looking to dive deeper into the genre - so it’ll continue to serve as a good roadmap there 🤠
As the century of these writings marches on, we see molds built, used, and broken time and time again - a fun study, yes, but at times a bit slow and repetitive with its continued cycles.
For those looking for an introduction to the genre and the authors who create in that space, this serves as a great resource. Jakes highlights each author’s background, contributions, and the subsequent public sentiment and film/television adaptations of their work. Will be coming back to my copy often when looking to dive deeper into the genre - so it’ll continue to serve as a good roadmap there 🤠
March 6, 2017
My favorites were "The Weight of Obligation" by Rex Beach, and "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour. Some were bad enough to skip.
July 24, 2012
An excellent collection of stories and authors. I found myself wishing that several of these were adapted to television as western reality versus all the horrible current reality shows. Each story gave an introduction to the author and titles of other works. Gunslinging, posses, simpler love stories, stage coaches, gamblers, gunfights, sheriffs, and small towns with a thread of courage, valor, and respect drawn through.
November 27, 2017
An excellent collection of western short stories. Some are OK and some are excellent but overall a good read. Many were made into TV shows and movies.
March 1, 2018
Nice collection of Westerns. This is a genre I avoided like the plague an am now embracing as ultimately, the genre is stories about people against the odds. This collection has some great writing and some stories that didn't work for me. It's varied and very worthy of being a 'car book' . I always keep a book in my car for solitary meals or time at the park after walking the dog, or the inevitable wait when meeting someone. Toss this in your glove box, you won't be sorry to have it along.
March 29, 2024
If you are interested in the history of the Western, this book is a must-have. All the most influential writers are here, and the stories are pure, unapologetic Westerns—gunslingers, gold miners, ranchers, sheriffs...you name it. I didn't enjoy all the stories, but I did recognize their place in Western lore. So, four stars for doing such a good job of collecting tried-and-true Western stories.
January 10, 2022
You never love them all but worth reading.
March 8, 2015
A solid collection of all the varieties of the western tale: from recognizable classics, to weird and thinly plotted out pulp that just happens in a western setting.
Jakes is a good guide and has a firm editorial grip. Unlike other anthologies where the freaks are marginal entries from well known authors in other genres trying their hand in something new, the stranger additions to the collection are examples of genre stretching by authors so fully in the mainstream of the western tradition trying something different.
Like all anthologies, this book tries to be all things to all readers, and so throws in several classic pulp stories, a couple of murder stories disguised as westerns, but mostly there are a lot of solid western genre tales in here that will keep anyone interested.
Jakes is a good guide and has a firm editorial grip. Unlike other anthologies where the freaks are marginal entries from well known authors in other genres trying their hand in something new, the stranger additions to the collection are examples of genre stretching by authors so fully in the mainstream of the western tradition trying something different.
Like all anthologies, this book tries to be all things to all readers, and so throws in several classic pulp stories, a couple of murder stories disguised as westerns, but mostly there are a lot of solid western genre tales in here that will keep anyone interested.
July 28, 2014
Terrific collection. Gems by writers familiar and not. Not all are first rate in themselves, but any collection this size will be uneven. Much to enjoy, and for writers of short stories much to be be learned.
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