"With the publication of this monumental, long-awaited volume, the study of western American literature has finally been given the attention worthy of a serious academic discipline."—Bloomsbury Review

"Hefty, scholarly, encyclopedic, and indispensable for the serious students of western literature."—Booklist

In 1986 publication of A Literary History of the American West was a major literary event, both for the American West and for TCU Press. The book is now out of print. As a service to scholarship, TCU Press has made this important reference tool available on the Web with no fee for access.

In 1986 the term "western" brought to most minds the names of Owen Wister, Louis L'Amour, Tom Mix, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood. "The literature of the American West," wrote Max Westbrook of the University of Texas at Austin in his preface to the book, "although handicapped by association with Hollywood horse operas and stereotypical paperbacks sold in bus stations, includes a fine body of first-rate literary art." That much of the literature of the American West was largely unknown to the American public, Westbrook continued, may be due in part to the fact that the West had produced no William Faulkner, no "giant with enough original power" to collapse the stereotyped ideas of the western.

This 1408-page volume was a giant step toward collapsing that stereotype. A comprehensive history, it supported the ongoing introduction of western literary riches to readers interested in American literature, culture, and history. Its diversity, according to Westbrook, was a tribute to the richness and diversity of the literature of the American West and to those writers who "avoided temptations to write for popularity or prestige and chose to write honestly about the American West."

The book includes essays by more than eighty scholars. Some deal with individual authors—Bret Harte, J. Frank Dobie, Larry McMurtry, Edward Abbey, Hamlin Garland, and others. Other essays explore the novel, poetry and drama of the American West from the nineteenth century to the present, and still others discussed the contributions of ethnic communities—Mexican-American, African American, Asian American, Scandinavian immigrant literature, and American Indian writers. Essays also dealt with various sections of the West—from the Midwest to the Far West, the Southwest, the West of the Rocky Mountains.

Members of the Western Literature Association long recognized the need for such a history. In the early 1980s, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities made the work possible. The late J. Golden Taylor was the editor; at his death, his work was taken up by Thomas J. Lyon of Utah State University. In 1997, TCU Press followed the first volume with Updating the Literary West.

This book may also be accessed from the TCU Press Homepage.

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A Literary History of the American West

Publication Date: January 1999.