PIONEER AND FRONTIER STORIES

National Library Service 

for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

The Library of Congress

Washington 1995

_CONTENTS_

INTRODUCTION

NONFICTION

Cassettes

 Braille

FICTION

Prolific Authors

_Louis L'Amour_

  Cassettes

  Braille

_Dana Fuller Ross_

  Cassettes

  Braille

_More Frontier Stories_

Cassettes

Braille

ANTHOLOGIES

Cassettes

Braille

OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHIES

_Introduction_

_Pioneer and Frontier Stories_ is a bibliography of selected

books, fiction and nonfiction, dealing with the lives of the

people who blazed trails westward and settled the land. This

bibliography does not necessarily include the complete works of

the authors represented or everything on this subject available

in the collection of the National Library Service for the Blind

and Physically Handicapped (NLS). Some books have been excluded

because of space limitations, and new works are continually added

to the collection. Cooperating libraries can help interested

readers find other books on this subject.

     The explorers who sailed the Atlantic in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries and returned with news of lands previously

unknown to Europeans are well known. The people who crossed those

lands by horse and wagon train and devoted their lives to

settling the land are not. Their qualities, however, were a major

force in defining the image of the American as an individualist.  

     Life was hard on the frontier. The pioneers had to clear the

land and build houses before they could begin the business of

farming, trapping, trading, and ranching. Moving great distances

into unsettled areas, they had to overcome difficulties of

climate, weather, and terrain, as well as endure the loneliness

of leaving family and friends. Not only comforts were in short

supply; so were many necessities such as medicine and

professional medical care, resulting in a high infant mortality

rate and a short life expectancy. 

     The people who survived this life left dramatic stories. A

number of first-hand accounts are included. Many people, not all

of them famous, set out to record their experiences. There are

autobiographies of Buffalo Bill and General Custer and also of

Teddy Blue Abbott, a cowpuncher; Mary Hamilton, a cook; and

William Swain, a gold miner. Some left pieces of their stories

behind for others to assemble. The personal diary of Emily

French, a laundress, is included, and several collections contain

excerpts from the daily journals of frontier women.       The

frontier has provided the setting for a great deal of fiction.

Louis L'Amour thought that Buffalo Bill or Wild Bill Hickok would

have been perfectly at home on the streets of Homer's Troy or

Elizabethan England because these periods had the same qualities

the Old West had. Authors as diverse as James Fenimore Cooper,

Willa Cather, Larry McMurtry, and Edna Ferber have all set novels

on the frontier. The resourcefulness, self reliance, and

individualism displayed by the settlers of the American West have

become part of the American character.       

     This bibliography is available in large-print, recorded, and

braille formats. The large-print edition contains more than 250

titles available on cassette and in braille. The recorded edition

lists only cassettes; the braille edition lists only braille. In

the large-print and recorded editions, books available on

flexible disc are cited at the end of the annotation of the

cassette  version. 

     The listings in this bibliography are divided into three

main sections: nonfiction, fiction (Prolific Authors and More

Frontier Stories), and anthologies; and all sections are

subdivided by medium. In each section books are listed in

alphabetical order by author, then title, with the exception of

books that form a series. Each series is labeled and listed in

the order in which the books should be read. 

     To order books, contact your cooperating library.

 

*** 11/12/96 (gft)***

Comments to: lcmarvel@loc.gov.