Lonesome Dove: A Novel (Paperback)

Larry McMurtry, in books like The Last Picture Show, has depicted the modern degeneration of the myth of the American West. The subject of Lonesome Dove, cowboys herding cattle on a great trail-drive, seems like the very stuff of that cliched myth, but McMurtry bravely tackles the task of creating meaningful literature out of it. At first the novel seems the kind of anti-mythic, anti-heroic story one might expect: the main protagonists are a drunken and inarticulate pair of former Texas Rangers turned horse rustlers. Yet when the trail begins, the story picks up an energy and a drive that makes heroes of these men. Their mission may be historically insignificant, or pointless--McMurtry is smart enough to address both possibilities--but there is an undoubted valor in their lives. The result is a historically aware, intelligent, romantic novel of the mythic west that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

T. K. WhippleStudy Out the LandAll America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and out past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.

Geoffrey C. Wardcoauthor of The Civil War: An Illustrated HistoryThis richly illustrated account of one man's Civil War belongs in the library of anyone interested in knowing what it was really like to fight for the American Union.

John Jakesauthor of The North and South TrilogySneden's record in words and pictures is remarkable and unique. You have never read -- or seen -- a Civil War memoir like this one.

James I. Robertson, Jr.author of Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend"Spectacular," "gripping," "unprecedented," and "unique in every sense," are overused phrases in describing a new book. Yet each applies here. Robert Sneden's diary-memoir of service in the 40th New York is extraordinary in itself. His scores of watercolors of scenes in the field have no equal in Civil War art.

Gary W. Gallagherauthor of Lee and His Generals in War and MemoryRobert Knox Sneden bequeathed a rich store in pictorial and narrative material to students of the Civil War. His drawings and paintings depict many places for which we have no other pictorial representations. This highly unusual account, which is enhanced by the editors' excellent work, quickly should take its place among the invaluable published primary sources on the conflict.

William C. Davisauthor of Lincoln's Men: How President Lincoln Became Father to an Army and a NationA prize find. Unusually full and dramatic, Sneden's Eye of the Storm is one of the most fulsome and significant prison memoirs to come out of the war. The wonderful drawings and maps only further gild an already golden human and historical document.

William Marvelauthor of Andersonville: The Last DepotRobert Sneden's detailed eyewitness sketches of Confederate prisons -- and Andersonville in particular -- offer unique glimpses of scenes that were, for the most part, never recorded by any camera or any better artist.

Jeffrey D. Wertauthor of A Brotherhood of ValorRobert Knox Sneden saw too much of the Civil War, from the slaughter of battlefields to the horrors of Andersonville. But Sneden was an astute observer, who left behind a wonderful legacy in words, drawings, and maps. Eye of the Storm is a splendid book.