Other editions of book The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days

The Log of a Cowboy was written in response to the unrealistic western adventures being written in the early 20th century. Adams wrote extensively about cowmen and the cattle business. His stories have an authenticity of detail and style that sets them apart. Having spent 12 years in the saddle, Adams is able to give a compelling first-hand account about cowboy life and a cattle drive he made from Texas to the Blackfeet Agency in his early 20s. His "log" is a classic and authentic description of trail men and their work, cow horses and range cattle. The Log of a Cowboy is an account of a five-month drive of 3,000 cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to Montana in 1882 along the Great Western Cattle Trail. Although the book is fiction, it is firmly based on Adams's own experiences on the trail, and it is considered by many to be the best account of cowboy life in literature.

"Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" is one of the most original pieces of fiction ever written. With the use of a geometric theme, Edwin Abbott weaves the fascinating tale of "A Square" an inhabitant of "Flatland" who journeys to Spaceland, Lineland, and Pointland. Flatland is a witty and satirical adventure that explores the very nature of physical reality.

"Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" is one of the most original pieces of fiction ever written. With the use of a geometric theme, Edwin Abbott weaves the fascinating tale of "A Square" an inhabitant of "Flatland" who journeys to Spaceland, Lineland, and Pointland. Flatland is a witty and satirical adventure that explores the very nature of physical reality.

The Log of a Cowboy is an account of a five-month drive of 3,000 cattle from Brownsville, Texas, to Montana in 1882 along the Great Western Cattle Trail. Although the book is fiction, it is firmly based on Adams's own experiences on the trail, and it is considered by many to be the best account of cowboy life in literature. Adams was disgusted by the unrealistic cowboy fiction being published in his day; The Log of a Cowboy was his response. Modern reviewers consider it a compelling classic.

The most authentic account of cowboy life ever written, this compelling narrative traces the events of an 1882 cattle drive, during which 3,000 longhorns traversed the Great Western Cattle Trail from Brownsville, Texas, to the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana. The author, real-life cowboy Andy Adams (1859–1935), worked as a prospector as well as a cattle driver on the Western trails. Although The Log of a Cowboy crackles with the energy and excitement of fiction, it is based on Adams' own experiences. The Chicago Herald noted, "As a narrative of cowboy life, Andy Adams' book is clearly the real thing. It carries its own certificate of authentic firsthand experience on every page."Fascinating details of day-to-day life on the trail emerge as a team of a dozen cowhands — accompanied by a cook, horse wrangler, and foreman — set out on the long trek. Days are marked by dangerous river crossings and buffalo stampedes as well as encounters with Indians and cattle thieves. Evenings find the crew exchanging tall tales around the campfire and occasionally hunkered down at cowtown saloons. Originally published in 1903 to refute popular but unrealistic tales of the Old West, this classic adventure story remains a remarkable historical resource and portrait of American frontier life.

Andy Adam's true-to-life story of an 1882 cattle drive is his best known, and its retelling 100 years later in Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove" is evidence of its importance among early works of Western fiction. Here the protagonist is a young cowboy much like the author, who trailed beef from Texas to Montana at a time just after the buffalo herds were being extinguished from the short grass prairies and homesteading had not yet fenced in the high plains. Oklahoma was still "Indian Territory," Little Big Horn was a recent memory, and Native Americans were in the last shameful stages of being forced off the open range. The railroads were snaking across the land making frontier boom towns where law and order either prevailed (Dodge) or more often did not (Ogallala), and the vast cattle herds of Texas and Mexico finally had a market and access to it. Adams was born into this world and as a young man cowboyed during the height of the cattle drive era. His book is an account of one trek, delivering 3,000 head of cattle to the Blackfoot Agency in northern Montana. For the protagonist, the initial excitement wears off once the daily routine is established, and besides the occasional stampede and wet weather, the highlights of the journey are brief visits to the cowtowns they pass along the way and the many river crossings, some of which pose enormous difficulties. A few of the men in the outfit stand out, such as Flood the foreman, McCann the cook, and the protagonist's trail mate The Rebel, who is older and wiser and something of a mentor. Other personalities emerge, primarily around the campfire on nights when the men get to swapping stories. And Adams passes on a lot of first-hand knowledge about trailing cattle, riding horses, and the day-to-day operation of a drive. Days and nights of the routine are punctuated by episodes of another kind: a rigged horse race, in which the cowboys lose several hundred dollars in wagers, two saloon shootings, the breakdown of the chuck wagon, pulling cattle out of a boggy river, meeting potentially hostile Indians, an encounter with cattle thieves, and a long drive across a waterless expanse of Wyoming. In "The Log of a Cowboy," Adams captures the excitement and the reality of the old West before it was romanticized and mythologized by the movies and popular fiction.

Straightforwardly told, rich in detail, and laced with appealing campfire humor, Andy Adams's realistic The Log of a Cowboy is a classic portrayal of the western cattle country. Drawing on his own experiences as a cowboy working in cattle and horse drives, Adams presents a vivid portrait of the challenges of trail life on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana—the daily drudgery of cattle trailing, as well as the dramatic stampedes and other treacherous disruptions. Populated by a wide variety of well-drawn, lively characters, The Log of a Cowboy remains the landmark novel of the American West a century after its first appearance. This is the first edition of this work published as a Penguin Classic. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Straightforwardly told, rich in detail, and laced with appealing campfire humor, Andy Adams's realistic The Log of a Cowboy is a classic portrayal of the western cattle country. Drawing on his own experiences as a cowboy working in cattle and horse drives, Adams presents a vivid portrait of the challenges of trail life on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana—the daily drudgery of cattle trailing, as well as the dramatic stampedes and other treacherous disruptions. Populated by a wide variety of well-drawn, lively characters, The Log of a Cowboy remains the landmark novel of the American West a century after its first appearance. First time in Penguin Classics

A classic fictional chronicle of life on the open trail, THE LOG OF A COWBOY has long been considered the best and most reliable account of real cowboy life ever written. In the years following the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Andy Adams left his home in the San Antonio Valley and took to the range. Here he charts his first journey as a bona fide cowboy, from south Texas to Montana along the western trail. Guided by his plainspoken, sure-saddled voice and the living, breathing feel of firsthand experience on every page, we relive dusty cattle drives, perilous river crossings, honor-based gunfights, and narrow escapes from buffalo stampedes, not to mention tall tales passed around the campfire and such unforgettable characters as Bull Durham and Bill Blades. THE LOG OF A COWBOY, newly introduced by Thomas McGuane, offers a true depiction of a cowboy's life and work as well as a classic adventure story of the great American frontier.