Life of Daniel Boone, The [Hardcover]

Lyman C. Draper (Author), Ted Franklin Belue (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

The definitive biography of America's foremost frontersman, with little-known information on Boone's family, long hunting, the fur trade, and the trans-Allegheny West.

"No collection of Americana should be without this long-missing volume." --Booklist

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When he died in 1891, historian Draper left unfinished this massive biography of legendary Kentucky frontier hero Daniel Boone (1734-1820). Now Belue, who teaches history at Murray State University in Kentucky, has transcribed and annotated Draper's rambling manuscript, whose florid, hagiographic prose should not deter readers from some real merits. First, Draper, an indefatigable researcher, drew upon thousands of documents as well as interviews with white, Native American and black frontier dwellers to re-create Boone's colorful exploits, including his blazing of a trail through the Cumberland Gap; his construction of Boonesborough, the first permanent settlement in the "Far West"; and his dramatic rescue of his daughter Jemima and two other girls from Indians. Second, Draper's tome is a treasure trove of early Americana, covering Indian-Anglo wars and relations, the fur trade, the British presence and trans-Appalachian life, flora and fauna. Third, the 76 period drawings, engravings, photographs and maps offer revealing glimpses of both whites and Native Americans. And finally, Belue's entertaining and informative chapter notes diligently correct Draper's romanticization, offering instead a lifelong wanderer from home and family, a failed land speculator, an adventurer who watched his son tortured to death by Cherokees but who still sought accommodation with the Indians. Regrettably, Draper's text breaks off in 1778, but a chronology, epilogue and appendix sketch Boone's later exploits.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Daniel Boone was one of America's earliest frontiersmen, a legend in his own lifetime. Born in Pennsylvania in 1734, he was without schooling; but he learned to read and write phonetically, and he gained enough knowledge of mathematics to do survey work. He began exploring Kentucky in 1769, when he was first guided through the Cumberland Gap by trader John Findley. He helped lay out the Wilderness Road and served as an agent of land development, scout, militia commander, county representative, and judge. An in-depth biography of Boone has never existed until now. Draper, first secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, set out to write this definitive biography in the early 1850s, but after 40 years' work he was unable to finish the task. A century later, Ted Franklin Belue revived the manuscript, edited it, and annotated it. Boone emerges as a genuine leader whose word was his bond, an adopted member of the Shawnee, and a good husband and father. No collection of Americana should be without this long-missing volume. Fred Egloff

Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 1st edition (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811709795
• ISBN-13: 978-0811709798
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #796,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Gold Mine!"--Roundup, 4/1999, April 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Life of Daniel Boone, The (Hardcover)

In 1856, the eminent historian, Lyman C. Draper, temporarily laid aside the 800 handwritten page biography of Daniel Boone that he had just recently completed. So far, Draper had documented the famous American frontiersman's life only through the year, 1778, and he fully intended to renew the project one day to cover the forty-two additional years of Boone's life. But that day never came, Draper went to his grave in 1891, and his unfinished manuscript was filed away and largely forgotten in the collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. One day in 1990, Ted Franklin Belue, a history professor at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, was studying Draper's manuscript on microfilm. Here, according to Belue's own words, was a national treasure, "known only to a few, filled with tales of Boone, frontier lore, Long Hunters, Indians, wild exploits, hunters' skills, genealogical data, descriptions of native flora and fauna, miscellaneous Americana, trans-Appalachian history, and much more." It took Belue eight years to transcribe, edit, and annotate the monumental manuscript. The result is an equally monumental book. More than 600 fact-filled pages tell the story of Boone from his birth in Pennsylvania in 1734 to his residence forty-four years later in Kentucky. Draper's original biography is much enhanced by Belue's interesting preface, his own extensive notes which shed a great deal of additional information on Boone in light of modern-day research, a chronology of Boone's life, a fine selection of period illustrations and maps, and an index. The Life of Daniel Boone is a book that anyone interested in America's "first West" will read with relish and appreciation. It is a testimonial to a man whose name-even today, nearly two hundred years after his death-is one of the country's most recognizable. But, beyond its tribute to Boone, the volume presents a gold mine of information about everyday life on the trans-Appalachian frontier, the mores and lifestyles of the region's first Anglo settlers, and a number of mini-biographical sketches about some of the key players of the times. --James A. Crutchfield

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent! Filson Club History Quarterly, fall 1999, October 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Life of Daniel Boone, The (Hardcover)

....This volume consists of basically three principal componets: first, Belue's own introductory material which describes in considerable detail the life of Draper and his research methods and explains Belue's own approach to his editing responsibilities; second, the text of Draper's manuscript, "Life of Boone," with mimimal editing, complete with the author's original footnotes; third, Belue's own footnotes which supplement Draper's and provide additional explanatory and background information....While Draper's narrative itself is stylized, as amplified by Belue it does present with considerable clarity the life of Boone through 1778....Belue's careful study of pioneer times coupled with a breadth of general historic knowledge has enabled him through footnotes to supplement Draper's text with insightful interpretations. This scholarly volume will significantly assist historians who are looking for factual accounts of the opening of the first "great west." Ronald R. Van Stockum

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it!--Smoke and Fire News, Dec. 1998, December 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Life of Daniel Boone, The (Hardcover)

I simply cannot tell you how critically important this latest offering is from Ted Franklin Belue. For close to 150 years, ninety percent of everything you've ever read in regard to the longhunter and the frontier Cumberland and Ohio valley experience was documented via information contained inside this book! Except...you couldn't just simply read it until our friend from Kentucky's Murray State University (the famous author and historian) Mr. Ted Franklin Belue, got his hands on it....Draper always intended to transform this incredible wealth of primary and secondary documentation into a book, but it never happened....Well, thanks to the Herculean efforts of Belue, we common folk now have unlimited access to "the entire motherlode"! Draper's THE LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE....There is much never-before-published information on Boone, his lifestyle and those who were associated with him. But this is just the tip of the iceberg!....There is a great deal more information on Boone's contemporaries and the world around them....Basically all the legitimate reliable documentation we have on the classic Virginia/Carolina longhunter came from and is contained within this book!....No longer need we be content with the little scraps and quotes. At last (thanks to Ted Franklin Belue) we now have "the source": Draper's THE LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. Handsomely hardbound with a beautiful dust jacket, the huge 600 page book is filled with all sorts of appendices, early maps, and period and contemporary illustrations--never before published photographs from the Dresslar and Grant collections. The book literall overflows with numerous first-person narratives and biographies of frontier notables, including the entire diary of Dr. Thomas Walker's monumental 1750 exploration of Kentucky. Folks, if you have an association with the 18th century frontier and you'd like to become infinitely more knowledgeable about the people who actually lived there and what actually happened in those places and times through their own telling--you need this book. Now that this gem is available to the public, I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a serious student of the 18th century West not owing a copy of Draper's THE LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE.--John Curry