How the West Was Won [Mass Market Paperback]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1984

They came by river and by wagon train, braving the endless distances of the Great Plains and the icy passes of the Sierra Nevada. They were men like Linus Rawlings, a restless survivor of Indian country who’d headed east to see the ocean but left his heart—and his home—in the West. They were women like Lilith Prescott, a smart, spirited beauty who fled her family and fell for a gambling man in the midst of a frontier gold boom. These pioneering men and women sowed the seeds of a nation with their courage—and with their blood. Here is the story of how their paths would meet amid the epic struggle against fierce enemies and nature’s cruelty, to win for all time the rich and untamed West.


From the Paperback edition.

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Louis L'Amour's great epic of human courage and endurance, his brave saga of the men and women who pushed relentlessly forward--despite the uncertainties of nature, the wrath of savage enemies, countless dangers and cruel death--to win the wide, shining lands of the rich and untamed West! --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Louis L'Amour's great epic of human courage and endurance, his brave saga of the men and women who pushed relentlessly forward--despite the uncertainties of nature, the wrath of savage enemies, countless dangers and cruel death--to win the wide, shining lands of the rich and untamed West! --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553247808
• ISBN-13: 978-0553247800
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,063,682 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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Novel, but which came first-The book or movie?, February 17, 2005

By 

Ralph DeMattia "A Lincoln Fan" (Fayetteville, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How the West was won,: A novel

I saw this book in the leatherbound version a couple of years ago, and have read it so mant times that I think I need to get another copy! It's a really great book, but which came first-The book or the movie. I ask this because the book follows the movie, scene for scene and some of the dialogue from the movie is in the book, almost word-for-word, and I mean this as a sincere compliment, not a knock on the book at all. I have so seldomly read a book that Hollyweird didn't butcher so badly that the movie hardly resembles the book. But in HTWWW, the movie follows the book so closely that it almost reads like a script, but very enjoably so! I reccommend this book highly, and get the leatherbound copy; it's beautiful and really holds up. Thanks, Mr L'Amour! A GREAT BOOK!!!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of L'Amour's Very Best!, October 29, 2004

By 

Thomas L. Ogren (San Luis Obispo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How the West Was Won (Paperback)

I just finished reading How the West Was Won and have got to say that it is a mighty fine read! This Western has it all, fun, funny, scary, exciting, a fabulous tall tale of adventure.
If for some reason you have never read any of Louis L'Amour's books, you have been missing out on a real treat. I am a writer myself (Allergy-Free gardening, safe sex in the Garden, and other books) and I have to admit that for most of my life I was snobby about reading any Louis L'Amour. However, less than a year ago my brother encouraged me to try some of them, and immediately I was hooked. I, like many others, no am almost always reading one, and as soon as I finish it I find another and start in on it. I mean, they are just too much fun to be missed.
Some think too that his books are only for men, but I have found that women and many kids too really enjoy them. No one could write better adventure than L'Amour, and certainly no one could write a better Western.
This particular book, How the West Was Won, is one of his best. It is a big, fun, rip-snorting book and I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars L'amour fans...this is a NOVELIZATION OF A MOVIE...let this one go!, April 21, 2009

By 

Jerod LeCompte (Auburn, AL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How the West Was Won (Paperback)

Sure, this is a L'amour novel in the sense that Louis put the pen to paper...but the characters, action, and sequence were by necessity based straight from the movie. The writing seems forced and contrived, due to Louis having to work within the framework of an existing story.

If you love L'amour, this book will be a struggle for you. Books that are adapted into movies, are often great. Novelizations based on movies...not so much...