Literary histories, of course, do not have a reason for being unless there exists the literature itself. This volume, perhaps more than others of its kind, is an expression of appreciation for the talented and dedicated literary artists who ignored the odds, avoided temptations to write for popularity or prestige, and chose to write honestly about the American West, believing that experiences long knowns to be of historical importance are also experiences that need and deserve a literature of importance.

Introduction -- Native Oral Traditions -- Folklore in the American West -- Introduction -- Across the Wide Missouri: The Adventure Narrative from Lewis and Clark to Powell -- The military -- Lawmen and Outlaws -- Introduction -- Precursors of the Western Novel -- The Western Story -- World Westerns: The European Writer and the American West -- Western Poverty, 1850-1950 -- Western American drama to 1960 -- The Nature Essay in the west -- The Western movie to 1960 -- Introduction -- Roosevelt, Wister, Turner, and Remington -- Early Western Literary Scholars -- Introduction -- Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and the San Francisco Circle -- Mary Hunter Austin -- Frank Norris -- Jack London -- Robinson Jeffers -- H.L. Davis -- John Steinbeck -- Theodore Roethke -- William Stafford -- William Saroyan -- Prophets on the burning shore: Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and San Francisco -- Introduction -- The cowboy in short fiction -- The novel of the cowboy -- J. Franc Dobie -- Harvey Fergusson -- Katherine Anne Porter and the Southwest -- Oliver La Farge -- Paul Horgan -- William Eastlake -- Benjamin Capps -- Edward Abbey -- Larry Mc Murty -- The Southern border -- Introduction -- Hamlin Garland and Midwest farm fiction -- Willa Cather -- Rolvaag and Krause: Two Novelists of the Northwest -- Prairie Frontier -- John G. Neihardt -- The Western writings of Sinclair Lewis -- Mari Sandoz -- Wright Morris -- Frederick Manfred -- Thomas McGrath -- Robert Bly -- Introduction -- Mormon Novels -- Vardis Fisher -- "Intellectualoids," Westering, and Thomas Hornsby Ferril -- Bernard De Voto -- A.B. Guthrie, Jr. -- Frank Waters -- Jack Shaefer -- Wallace Stegner -- Walter Van Tilburg Clark and the American Dream -- The Northern Boundary -- Introduction -- Western American Indian Writers, 1854-1960 -- American Indian Fiction -- Coyote's Sons, Spider's Daughters: Western American Indian poetry, 1968-1983 -- Early Mexican-American literature -- Contemporary Mexican-American Literature, 1960-present -- Asian-American literary traditions -- Afro-