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272 Western American Literature case of Andrew Sinclair’s Jack, more a necropsy than a biography. It is not particularly ironic that Sailor on Horseback, buffeted for 40 years by London purists for its errors, inconsistencies, dubious interpretation of events, and unscholarly character, remains the one book about Jack London people read, that all many people know about London is what they learned from Sailor on Horseback. Examples of such cases abound and infuriating as they can be to scholars, the “popular” biographies are gen­ erally not too bdthersome and most sink out of sight in short order. Not so with Sailor on Horseback. It demands as much attention today as it did in 1938—perhaps more, given the sharpening of interest in London studies. And far from sinking out of sight, it rises again and again to the surface as a book to contend with. DALE L. WALKER, University of Texas at El Paso Western Writers Series. Numbers 26 through 30. Edited by Wayne Chatterton and James H. Maguire. (Boise: Boise State University, 1977. 47-49 pages with Selected Bibliographies, $2.00 each.) E. W. Howe. By Martin Bucco. George Catlin. ByJoseph R. Millichap. Josiah Gregg and Lewis H. Garrard. By Edward Halsey Foster. Edward Abbey. By Garth McCann. Charles Warren Stoddard. By Robert L. Gale. The latest pamphlets in the now-familiar Boise series are as concisely functional as their predecessors, but pose an increasingly nagging question — who are the significant Western writers? No one questions the presence in the series of Vardis Fisher, Wallace Stegner, Frederick Manfred, and Jack Schaefer, nor are we likely to challenge the inclusion of Benjamin Capps, Bernard DeVoto, or Mari Sandoz. Yet, in the current set, though two of the six authors treated are undeniably significant, three are at best interesting, and one is a Western writer only by courtesy. What, then, defines the noteworthy Western writer? The editors have asked the question before, but it seems time to ask it again. Edgar Watson Howe certainly merits inclusion. One of the first American authors to question the myth of “growing up with the country,” he has remained in semi-obscurity; however, Martin Bucco does him full justice. While fully aware of his subject’s manifest shortcomings, Bucco makes a solid case for Howe as journalist and social commentator; gives a thoughtful discussion of Howe’s most important book, The Story of a Country Town (1882) ; and supplies an excellent synopsis of extant Howe Reviews 273 scholarship. Bucco plainly believes that Howe’s writings have been unfairly neglected, and here advances the best argument yet for their further study. Less successful, through no fault of its author, is Joseph Millichap’s study of George Catlin. Millichap handily deals with Catlin’s life and his enormous Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians (1841), arriving at a judicious estimate of Catlin’s place in Western studies. But, as he points out, “Catlin’s writing is very specifically coordinated with his graphics.” (p. 5) Compelled by the pamphlet format to omit reproductions of drawings and paintings, Millichap is forced to do what he can with the prose work of a person far more important as a pictorial observer than as a writer. Edward H. Foster rises above his material in writing of Josiah Gregg and Lewis H. Garrard. Faced with the difficult task of treating two “Santa Fe Trail” stories in a single short essay, he produces plausible read­ ings of Commerce of the Prairies (1844) and Wah-to-yah, and the Taos Trail (1850), endeavoring to discuss Gregg and Garrard within the same frame of reference. Though he suggests several parallels between the two, Foster is most effective when discussing the works and authors singly, and the pamphlet comprises two generally separate studies. Garth McCann comes closer than most in trying to bag the elusive Edward Abbey with his straightforward account of Abbey’s life and work. His judgments are, at times, arguable: he finds too much in the dreary Jonathan Troy (1954) and not enough in The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975); he of necessity plays down Abbey’s journalism in favor of his booklength works; and...

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