Education of a Wandering Man [Hardcover]

Louis L'Amour (Author), Daniel J. Boorstin (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1989

Shortly before his death in June 1988, Louis L’Amour completed writing his most unique adventure story: a personal reflection on his lifelong love affair with learning. Now Bantam Books proudly presents this special Centennial Edition of Education of a Wandering Man, in which L’Amour vividly recalls many of the books he read, the places he visited, and the people he met that catalyzed his evolution as a writer.

In this, his most personal book ever, L’Amour writes of growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, of the parents who instilled in him a love of the printed and spoken word, and of his decision to leave school at fifteen to make the world his classroom. While his contemporaries attended high school, L’Amour skinned cattle in Texas, worked as a circus roustabout and a mine caretaker, won small-town prizefighting exhibitions, hoboed across Texas on the Southern Pacific, and shipped out to the West Indies, England, and Singapore as a merchant seaman. Wherever he wandered, his pockets were always bulging with books.

Like the beloved Louis L’Amour novels and short stories that preceded it, Education of a Wandering Man has its share of frontier drama—such as the author’s desperate two-day trek across the blazing Mojave Desert—and robust characters, ranging from Shanghai waterfront toughs to itinerant desert prospectors. All this ultimately informed and inspired the books that have made L’Amour one of the most widely read authors of our time.

Ever both teacher and storyteller, Louis L’Amour makes his education our education, in a book filled with glorious asides on everything from hobo culture to the fate of Butch Cassidy.

Here is a testament—part memoir, part reflection—in which the author bequeaths to us a most wonderful legacy of the “education of a wandering man”: a life lived to the fullest through the never-ending quest for knowledge.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is for the most fervent L'Amour fans only, those who consider it of moment, for example, to peruse his extensive reading lists for 1930, '31, '32, '33, '34, '35, '37 (the '36 list was lost). So banal is this memoir that one wonders if the late author regarded it as complete, or as the first draft it reads like. Ignoring chronology, L'Amour flits across his '30s' experiences in the western U.S. and Far East as seaman, ranch hand, mine guard, hobo. Interspersed are discourses on boxing, Buddhism, whatever comes to mind, on books he read by the likes of Shakespeare, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Nietzsche, plus pedestrian social observations and homilies. We learn that he was born (when?) in North Dakota, one of five children of a veterinarian father; that, quitting school at age 15, he wandered for a spell; that his wife's name is Kathy and that he had children (how many?). Author of more bestsellers than can be tracked, accounted to be a superb story-teller, L'Amour is surprisingly superficial in his own yarn. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Despite being disjointed, rambling, and repetitious, these unfinished memoirs by the noted Western author (who died last June) possess a raw enthusiasm for life and for books that is too rarely encountered today. For most of the book, L'Amour recounts scattered anecdotes of his knockabout years as a sailor, prize fighter, silver miner, and longshoreman who ranged from New Orleans to Singapore with a book in his hip pocket. The memoir portions are tall tales, well told, but the "education" portions are mere catalogs of books that will hardly interest even the most loyal fans. Still, L'Amour's sincere love of books and reading and his faith in humanity lend the book considerable charm.
- Michael Edmonds, State Historical Soc. of Wisconsin, Madison
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (October 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553057030
• ISBN-13: 978-0553057034
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,251 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of a campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, and miner, and was an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontiers and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

The recipient of many great honor and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist to ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've taught this book for 7 years., August 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Education of a Wandering Man (Paperback)

This was the book that L'Amour had on his desk in galleys when he died in 1988. I have used this book in my Freshman Composition classes for seven years. It is a marvellous book. I suspect that L'Amour did not really want to write it because he did not like to brag about himself. There is no bragging in the book, just the flat out reality that he was curious about the world and his curiosity could be fulfilled by reading. It is a great tribute to audodidacticism, a fancy word for the power of self teaching. I find the book inspiring and an important read for an adolescent, although I have had older students say that it made them readers. I am not much of a fan of L'Amour's westerns, but this book is one of my all-time favorites.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Love Affair With Life, June 25, 2000

By 

Marian Powell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Education of a Wandering Man (Paperback)

The Education of a Wandering Man is the story of one man's love affair with life. It is also amazingly well-written and shows Louis L'Amour to have been a thoughtful, philosophical man as well as an adventurer. Ironically, I haven't read his novels. When I tried to after reading this book, I concluded that his autobiography is a far greater work than his novels. I suspect that's because his own life story is a far greater story than any fiction could possibly be, plus he focused mainly on the western. I really wished he had branched out into the historical novel. He started to with The Walking Drum but that was at the end of his life and he didn't have time to follow with more novels that would cover the history of the world. As the other reviews emphasize, he began his wanderings at the age of 15 and from then on educated himself by reading. As a special bonus, at the back of the book is a list of the books he read each year from 1930-1935. It shows how widely he cast his net. If ever you want to show a teenager why reading is important, give him this book with the reminder that Louis L'Amour was a bestselling author for most of his life.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lamour truly feasted on the marrow of life!!, July 17, 2001

By 

Osheme (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Education of a Wandering Man (Paperback)

I have read a few books by L'Amour, but this tops them all. It opens the reader's mind to the many different opportunities that exist in life. I think that a lot of times, as we go through life, we get bogged down by the general routine, and we never stop and think of the different possibilities that await us. We too soon accept the conventional way that has been trodden before, and never consider different possibilities. L'Amour's zest for learning and reading is contagious, and the reader cannot help to have the desire to emulate the rigorous study that L'Amour underwent. I think people who love to read, and enjoy learning about different aspects of the world, will enjoy this book. I also think this is essential for the aspiring writer, because it gives the reader a personal look at the challenges L'Amour went through to achieve his dreams.

I also think this book is essential for sixteen year olds like the previous reviewer. If the kid would have opened his mind he may have realized that there are things in life beyond "cars, games, girls, and electronics." He may have also realized that literary works from previous times, such as "black and white" movies, and this book, can provide rich, intriguing and entertaining shades on the world. But such is the ignorance of youth, and the "Nintendo generation."