Southwest heritage series

"Mabel Dodge Luhan (1879-1962), the patron of the arts who put Taos, New Mexico, on the cultural map of the world, began to write her autobiography in 1924, a process that took over a decade and resulted in a four-volume opus published serially under the title Intimate Memories. Now almost forty years after her death Mabel has found an editor, and her book is available in one volume for the first time. Abridged and introduced by Rudnick, it is the story of a woman in rebellion against "the whole ghastly social structure" under which she felt the United States had been buried since the Victorian era. Her struggle for self-expression and community took her from Buffalo to Florence to Manhattan to Taos, a journey during which she married four times, ultimately finding happiness with Antonio Luhan, a Taos Indian. Mabel was famous for assembling the movers and shakers of her day, among them such luminaries as D.H. Lawrence, Gertrude Stein, and John Reed, her Greenwich Village lover in bohemian pre-World War I New York. From her childhood as a poor little rich girl to her realization on the last page of Intimate Memories that she could be happy with Tony because the Pueblo people were "not neurotic," Mabel's story is as engrossing as any novel."--Jacket.

In his introduction to the 1927 edition of Riata and Spurs, Gifford Pinchot said that "Charlie Siringo's story of his life is one of the best, if not the very best, of all books about the Old West, when cowpunchers actually punched cows." He goes on to say that "it is worth something to be able to lay your hand on a book written by a man who is the real thing, and who tells the truth." Others might not have the same opinion about the book and some might argue about Siringo's memories of things that happened during his lifetime. But, in any event, the book is a colorful portrayal of the ins and outs of cowboys, bad men, and the one detective who took out after them. Siringo originally had references to his experiences with the Pinkerton Agency, but which objected to his statements and they do note appear in the 927 edition. There's plenty left, however, including stories about Billy the Kid, Kid Curry, Butch Cassidy, and even a mention of Will Rogers. All in all, this fascinating book will give today's readers a rare glimpse of what was once called "the Old West" and is now forever gone -- Back cover.

Susan E. Wallace takes us into the heart of nineteenth-century New Mexico and its surrounding Indian Pueblos. Eagerly, she shares her adventures and observations about the land, history, customs and inhabitants. We start with her journey West first by rail and then by buckboard. We go with her to her first contact with Native Americans and attend an Indian ceremony. We share her excitement as she forces open a heavy wooden door into a locked and forgotten room in the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. Her discovery? Not a treasure of gold or jewels but tumbled piles of written records, some of them dating from the early 1600s. This is only one of the many accounts Wallace wrote about her time in New Mexico. While her husband, Lew Wallace, was busy with his duties as the governor of the New Mexico Territory and working on what was to be his most popular book, Ben-Hur, Susan was having her articles published in the popular magazines of the day.

xxi, 352 p. : 23 cm

Oliver La Farge covers may aspects of life in these sixteen stories, which range from an old man facing death, alone in the Mexican bush, in "Old Century's River," to some boys facing the responsibilities of life at St. Peter's school in "By the Boys Themselves"; from the science fiction of the great computing machines , in "John the Revelator," to the world of gourmets in "La Spécialité de M. Duclos"; from the violent death of a man off the Rhode Island coast, in "Thick on the Bay," to the quiet death of a marriage in New Mexico, in "A Pause in the Desert." The reader can be sure of finding in this variety the story to fit his taste and mood and sure too of finding in each the craftsmanship that marks all Mr. La Farge's work--what the New York Tribune called "the clean grace of his writing." This is a book to own, to enjoy, to lend to those friends who can be trusted to return it, and to give to those who cannot -- Book jacket.

Winter in Taos starkly contrasts Luhan's memoirs, published in four volumes and inspired by Marcel Proust's Remembrances of Things Past. They follow her life through three failed marriages, numerous affairs, and ultimately a feeling of 'being nobody in myself,' despite years of psychoanalysis and a luxurious lifestyle on two continents among the leading literary, art and intellectual personalities of the day. Winter in Taos unfolds in an entirely different pattern, uncluttered with noteworthy names and ornate details. With no chapters dividing the narrative, Luhan describes her simple life in Taos, New Mexico, this 'new world' she called it, from season to season, following a thread that spools out from her consciousness as if she's recording her thoughts in a journal. 'My pleasure is in being very still and sensing things,' she writes, sharing that pleasure with the reader by describing the joys of adobe rooms warmed in winter by aromatic cedar fires; fragrant in spring with flowers; and scented with homegrown fruits and vegetables being preserved and pickled in summer. Having wandered the world, Luhan found her home at last in Taos. Winter in Taos celebrates the spiritual connection she established with the 'deep living earth' as well as the bonds she forged with Tony Luhan, her 'mountain.' This moving tribute to a land and the people who eked a life from it reminds readers that in northern New Mexico, where the seasons can be harshly beautiful, one can bathe in the sunshine until 'untied are the knots in the heart, for there is nothing like the sun for smoothing out all difficulties.'--Amazon.com.

Christopher Carson was apprenticed to a saddle-maker when "being anxious to travel for the purpose of seeing different countries, I concluded to join the first party for the Rocky Mountains." In 1826 he ran away and joined a party westward bound, and spent many years scouting, trapping, and hunting. He describes travelling in California in 1830:"We found signs of trappers on the San Joaquin. We followed their trail and, in a few days, overtook the party and found them to be of the Hudson Bay Company. They were sixty men strong, commanded by Peter Ogden. We trapped down the San Joaquin and its tributaries and found but little beaver, but game plenty, elk, deer, and antelope in thousands."His encompassing knowledge of the West led to his career as a guide and in the 1840's he was employed by James Fremont. In typical abbreviated fashion Carson packs a several month journey from (what is now) Utah to Wyoming to Washington into a single paragraph:"We now took up Bear River till we got above the Lake. Then crossed to and took up Malade, thence to Fort Hall where we met Fitzpatrick and party. Fremont from here took his party and proceeded in advance. Fitzpatrick keeping in rear some eight days march and we struck for the mouth of the Columbia River. Arrived safe at the Dalles on the Columbia. Fremont took four men and proceeded to Vancouver's to purchase provisions. I remained in charge of camp."In 1854 the army was engaged in a campaign against the Jicarilla Apache in New Mexico, and Carson acted as the principle guide to Major Carleton:"It was evident that the Indians were making for the Mosco Pass. The command marched through the Sangre de Cristo Pass...I discovered a trail of three Indians in the pass, followed it till I came to the main trail near the Huerfano...They had passed through the pass as predicted. The main trail was now taken and followed six days when the Indians were discovered. We marched over very rugged country, mountains, canons, ravines had to be passed, but we overtook the Indians at last. The Indians were encamped in the east side of Fisher's Peak in the Raton Mountains. The troops charged in on the village. The Indians ran. Some were killed and about 40 head of horses were captured. They were followed until dark...A 1935 pamphlet about Kit Carson is subtitled "Pathfinder, Patriot and Humanitarian." By today's standards the world "humanitarian" would have to go, and a more complex understanding of the man and his era emerge. For instance, the laconic Carson barely mentions his Mexican and Indian wives in the brief autobiography he dictated to Colonel Peters." You may not get the entire story here, but you certainly experience the understated yet forceful personality behind the icon. The dialogue in this book has a ring of truth to it that is sometimes lacking in many of the books written by scouts, trappers and cowboys.