The Bounty of Texas

In addition to reminiscences of trapping and hunting in the Big Bend of West Texas during the 1920s and 1930s, this publication includes a heretofore unpublished outdoors sketch by J. Frank Dobie on deer hunting and a piece by Bertha McKee Dobie on Frank’s interest in grasses. Paul Clois Stone disagrees with Larry McMurtry’s contention that Dobie’s audience is "composed primarily of middle-aged nostalgics," and that Dobie’s work "will not outlive him by more than a generation." From Stone’s perspective on the Yale scene, "Dobie’s importance in the formal national academic community has grown since 1964 and . . . it will continue growing in the twenty-five years to come." Elmer Kelton, Joyce Roach, and Robert Flynn take a humorous look at their work and hometowns, which Kenneth Davis tells tales of souls departing their bodies. There are essays on the bounty of the tables of the earlier settlers, and the state’s ethnic heritages through the German Volksfest in Brenham. The folk-song scholarship of Dorothy Scarborough, the art of Ben Mead, a look at prison language, and much more are included in this bountiful book.