Customer Reviews

Trails Plowed Under: Stories of the Old West

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This book is one of my top ten favorites. I bought my first copy in 1972 for my father who passed away a year later. I have re-read this book many times with increased pleasure each time. It not only has Charles Russell's drawings and paintings, it has some of the best short stories I have ever read. I've lived in the West pretty much all my life and the characters he portrays ring so true that you know he knew them. He not only knew them, he was able to capture their essence in a few words. I usually don't laugh out loud at what I'm reading, but many of these stories are just plain "laugh out loud" funny. Anyone who enjoys Cowboy Poetry needs to have this in their library. It's not poetry per se, but gives you the same Western flavor in its writing. Most of the stories can be read in 5 minutes or less. I give it a solid 10 out of 5 stars.

This is a classic work of Western nonfiction by a Montana artist whose drawings and paintings helped create the iconography of the early cowboy of the open range. Also a storyteller, Russell wrote this collection of yarns and memories before his death, commemorating frontier life in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. It was published in 1927, with an introduction by Will Rogers in the form of a cowboy eulogy. The original edition featured more than 50 of Russell's illustrations, some of them in color.

Unlike the fairly rollicking account of Teddy Blue Abbott, his cowboy contemporary, Russell's book is a more melancholy view of what he remembers as the good old days. His stories are told in an ironic vernacular by an old-timer cowboy named Rawhide Rawlins. Many concern the adventures of cowboys; many also feature Native Americans, in the early years of the agencies (reservations), portrayed with some complexity of feelings, ranging from fear and distrust to respect. Some are outrageously tall tales. Some are spirited character sketches, capturing something of life on the rough, raw land before settlement and homesteading, the motorcar, and civilization - before the plow broke the prairie sod where buffalo and then cattle and cowboys ranged freely.

One of the finest pieces of Western writing occurs in the last chapter, "Longrope's Last Guard," which describes in vivid detail the experience of riding herd on a pitch dark night as the stillness is shattered by an electrical storm that stampedes the cattle and takes the life of one of the men. The burial of the dead cowboy on the open prairie and the subsequent disappearance of his grave is symbolic of the passing of the brief frontier era Russell's words and pictures embrace.

I recommend this book for its capturing of the historical cowboy as remembered by a man who was there and lived among them. As a companion volume, I also recommend Teddy Blue Abbott's "We Pointed Them North," a well-detailed and more light-hearted recollection of the same time and place.

Will Rogers said Charlie Russell wasn't "just another" cowboy artist, he wasn't "just another" anything. Though remembered mostly for his paintings, this book proves that Charlie Russell was a keen observer of human nature. This is a sentimental look back at a world that disappeared in Russell's lifetime. The stories will leave you nostalgic for a time you never knew.

Nothing compares to the facts, and no one who has not lived this could write it as C.M. Russell did. This old cowpuncher commands the written word and infuses the reader with his perfection -- the imagery of clear storytelling and spirit of those long-gone times. This he does quite as well as he wields the brush to canvas. I read it at a sitting, and will do it again as there are some facts in here about horses, people and buffalo that I did not know before. Another way of thinking and presenting a story about the actual facts is handed down in Trails Plowed Uder (1927) from former times . . . by this gifted sentimentalist.

Most people realize Charles Russell was a wonderfully gifted, world renowned artist who chronicled Western life with a myriad of sketches and paintings that grace the finest art museums in the world today. His work is meticulous with an attention to detail second to none. What few of us realized is that as good an artist as he was, he was an equally gifted author.

Published a few months before his death, Trails Plowed Under is a compendium of 43 short stories. He often complained of being "deaf and dum" with a pen but these writings, or yarns as he called them, certainly prove otherwise. In them he covers various aspects of everyday cowboy life from animals and stampedes to the colorful characters that peopled the American West as he knew it. Having cowboyed all his life he knew his subject well and he leaves behind a prism through which we today can catch a glimpse of the past as it was.

This book will tug on your emotions. You will laugh, reflect, think and admire Russell's skill with words. Some of these stories are undoubtedly true while others are designed to definitely pull your leg.

There is not a rotten apple in the barrel.

Charles Russell left us a wonderful gift in these stories. He managed to capture a first-person account of the Old West. I read this book many years ago, and recently re-read portions. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys good American western writing.
Highly recommended.

If you know who Charlie Russell is, you probably don't need to read this to know that this book is one of the most fascinating sources of first-hand information about America's Old Wild West. It's not a history book, and it's not about people you would have heard of. This is a collection of stories Charlie has either told or heard from others and retold. Accompanied by about 5 color plates and several drawings, it is worth the price for the artwork alone. Try to get one with the dustcover intact. Top it off with a foreword by Will Rogers, and you have one of the best books ever published on the subject. The language is in the vernacular of old Montana, and the stories are told as if he was standing in front of a campfire talking to friends -- something Russell did a lot of, and something for which his friends, like Rogers, missed him greatly when he passed.

Russell was one of the great painters of the old West, and many of his works fetched record-breaking prices during his lifetime. Now they hang in museums all over the world, especially the Russell Museum in Great Falls and the Amon Carter in Fort Worth. Published in 1927 and originally sold for $5.95, it's a shame this book hasn't been reprinted for modern audiences. But the original old books, if they were cared for, look like they just popped out of the printer's press. The paper has aged well, and the binding is perfect. You can read this book easily without wrestling with the pages.

Though the stories are usually short, you find them wedged into cowboy movies -- almost every cowboy movie ever made contains at least something from these pages. Here you sense the animosity between the white Americans who pushed the frontier ever-westward, and the Indians who resisted being forced out of their native hunting grounds, villages, and homes. But Russell never stoops to criticism of either race. He tells it like it was, and lets you put together the pieces. He admired Native Americans as the amazing people they were and still are, and portrayed them honestly and sympathetically. At the same time, they could be scary in battle, and in some of his tales the Indians (and the Cowboys, too) will raise the hair on the back of your neck.

If you are a fan of the old West, this book is absolutely essential reading. One thing to watch out for: be sure to ask the seller to check and make sure the plates are intact. People used to buy this book, cut out the color plates, frame them, and hang them on the wall. It was a very cheap way to acquire 5 Charlie Russell paintings. Specify to the seller that you want the color plates intact, and that you will return the book if they are missing or damaged.

Shooshie

Wonderful, expressive book of tales and happenings in the life of Western artist Charles M. Russell of Montana. Great read!!!!