Sackett's Land [Mass Market Paperback]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1976

Fiction, Westerns, Cowboys, Historical

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 185 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books; 6th Printing edition (1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553105523
• ISBN-13: 978-0553105520
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)

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

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First of the series, December 20, 2002

By 

Craig Clarke "Living After Midnight: Hard and... (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sackett's Land (The Sacketts) (Mass Market Paperback)

In Sackett's Land, we meet the first ancestor of the future Sackett clan to be immortalized in narrative. Englishman Barnabas Sackett gets in a bit of trouble in his homeland and sets off to the West to make a new home.

This is really what L'Amour is all about, not "the West," per se, but "the Frontier." Discovery of new lands and finding a life in the wide open spaces. Sackett sails over the ocean and lands in what will become America. His trials and struggles make for highly interesting reading and L'Amour's sense for detail gives one a true feeling for what it must have been like back then.

The most compelling of the series, and fine introduction to the First Family of frontier fiction.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Before there was a country, there were Sackets here...., November 13, 2002

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sackett's Land (The Sacketts) (Mass Market Paperback)

While I believe that I have read most of the Sackett novels, this first one was always my favorite. It is definately the most unusual of the series, indeed, of anything that I've read by Louis L'Amour.

Set in 1599, it is the story of Barnabas Sackett, founder of the Sackett clan in the New World. The Sacketts were fenmen (swamp men) eeking out an existance farming the little good land available to them, fishing for eels, smuggling, or going off to fight in the wars. It was the combination of the chance finding of a cache of Roman gold, along with a fight with an arrogant aristocrat, that put young Barnabas on the road to "adventure."

Fleeing to London, he meets the contacts that he will need to set sail for a new world and a new life. The sword fights, pirates, and sea battles that follow are not what you expect in a "western", but they are quite good never-the-less. Upon surviving to reach America (after Roanoke, but before Jamestown) Barnabas rapidly sizes up the territory and the inhabitants and resolves to start his family there- far from kings and aristocrats. When he hears of the "far blue mountains" from the Indians that he is trading with, he makes up his mind to one day travel to them- and beyond.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fitting beginning to the Sackett saga, June 25, 2006

By 

Mary A. Phillips (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sackett's Land (The Sacketts) (Mass Market Paperback)

No matter where you started with the Sackett books, go ahead and read this one now. For fans of L'Amour's work, especially The Walking Drum, you will be pleased.

Sackett's Land is a good and appropriate beginning for the entire saga. It may well stimulate you to read the whole history in order.

The book is important for yet another reason. It's style and depth are a window to what The Walking Drum has in store for you. Sackett's Land hints at what L'Amour was capable of beyond the pulp western market.

When we pick up a Louis L'Amour book of the standard pulp market size, we have a set of expectations. Good and evil will be clearly recognizable. Good will prevail. The story will be enjoyable and just instructive enough to make us feel that we grew from reading the book. Sackett's Land fulfills all these expectations.

Sackett's Land also holds an interesting place in popular literature. It is representation of a specific family (along with fellow travelers through life) and that family's initial transcontinental encounters. As one reads it, one is reminded of Edgar Rice Burroughs's stories of Lord Greystoke. In fact, as I was mentally remarking that Sackett's Land reminded me of Tarzan (books 1 and 2), I turned the page to find our protagonist marooned on the new continent. In this case, the new continent was the North America, not Africa, but the similarity was fun to notice.

Louis L'Amour was a man of his time, and while he could tap into Burrough's storytelling rhythms at times, L'Amour was ever more interested in depicting people as people, and a great respecter of human diversity. I believe descendants today of American Indians and Europeans can read Sackett's Land and enjoy thinking about their own American families.