The Way to the West, and the Lives of Three Early Americans

Hough, Emerson, 1857-1923Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
601K words
Chapters
61

Tags

English Originals World HistoryGeneral Biography Historical ReappraisalNature ObservationPortrait GalleryLegendary LivesAdventure JourneyFate and Fortune

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Way to the West, and the Lives of Three Early Americans:Author: Hough, Emerson, 1857-1923,Language: English, Class: F590.3: United States local history: The West. Trans-Mississippi Region. Great Plains, Release Date: Mar 15, 2014

Editor's review

This book is Emerson Hough's work on the history of westward expansion in America and the lives of three early Americans, falling within the local history of the Trans-Mississippi region and the Great Plains. Hough treats historical material in a narrative style, interweaving the broad process of western development with individual lived experience, so that readers can grasp the historical arc of westward expansion while also sensing the concrete texture of the pioneers' circumstances. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it is highly accessible and suits readers as an introductory work on American western history or as extensive reading material in English historical prose. It is best read against the broader background of nineteenth-century American westward expansion, with attention to the gap between the narrative perspective shaped by the author's era and contemporary historiography. The book involves many place names, figures, and period contexts; readers are advised to consult maps and chronologies as they read for clearer spatial and temporal bearings. For those studying American local history, frontier narrative, or English-language nonfiction writing, the book offers a moderately sized, freely searchable textual sample.

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and chapter titles to establish the book's structure and timeline before moving into specific chapters.
  2. Read alongside a map of the American West and a chronology of nineteenth-century events, locating place names and events as you go.
  3. Take brief notes on unfamiliar figures first, then revisit relationships and fates after finishing the book.
  4. Read the author's narrative in dialogue with contemporary historiography, noting the limitations of perspective that may arise from his era.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no background in American history? It can be read, but preparation helps. The book touches on background such as westward expansion and the Trans-Mississippi region, and without a foundation readers can easily lose the thread. It is better to first learn the basic outline of nineteenth-century American western development and have maps and a chronology at hand, treating this as follow-up reading after an introduction.
What are the practical features of the Project Gutenberg edition? This edition is a free eBook whose text can be freely downloaded and searched, making full-text lookup convenient on a computer or e-reader. It lacks the notes and introduction of a modern scholarly edition, so readers must supply background materials themselves. When citing, check the edition information and original page numbers.
Can the historical narrative in this book be cited directly as historical fact? It should not be cited directly as authoritative historical fact. The author wrote in the early twentieth century, and the narrative carries the perspective of his time and literary shaping. As a historical work, its materials and narrative framework can be consulted, but specific facts and interpretations should be cross-checked against other modern historical scholarship.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Hough, Emerson, 1857-1923 Author

Emerson Hough (1857-1923) was an American writer whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources. The collection here includes 26 of his works, most of them novels and historical narratives set against the backdrop of the American frontier. Representative titles include The Passing of the Frontier: A Chronicle of the Old West, The Covered Wagon, and The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado. His subjects center on westward expansion, Western outlaws, and historical episodes such as the Mississippi Bubble, as well as life in the West. His writing blends fiction with documentary observation, combining authentic historical atmosphere with adventure plots in a plain yet vivid style. His works offer readable and lively portraits of America's westward development and hold a place in Western-themed literature.