First published in 1935, Old Jules is unquestionably Mari Sandoz's masterpiece. This portrait of her pioneer father grew out of "the silent hours of listening behind the stove or the wood box, when it was assumed, of course, that I was asleep in bed. So it was that I heard the accounts of the hunts," Sandoz recalls. "Of the fights with the cattlemen and the sheepmen, of the tragic scarcity of women, when a man had to 'marry anything that got off the train,' of the droughts, the storms, the wind and isolation. But the most impressive stories were those told me by Old Jules himself." This Bison Books edition includes a new introduction by Linda M. Hasselstrom.

In 1867 conservative estimates put the number of buffaloes in the trans-Missouri region at fifteen million. By the end of the 1880s, that figure had dwindled to a few hundred. The destruction of the great herds is the theme of The Buffalo Hunters. Mari Sandoz's vast canvas is charged with color and excitement—accounts of Indian ambushes, hairbreadth escapes, gambling and gunfights, military expeditions, and famous frontier characters such as Wild Bill Hickok, Lonesome Charlie Reynolds, Buffalo Bill, Sheridan, Custer, and Indian chiefs Whistler, Yellow Wolf, Spotted Tail, and Sitting Bull.

In the autumn of 1878 a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the U.S. government, to return to their homeland in Yellowstone country. Mari Sandoz tells the saga of their heartbreaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight. Alan Boye provides an introduction to this Bison Books edition.

"No one in our time wrote better than the late Mari Sandoz did, or with more authority and grace, about as many aspects of the Old West," said John K. Hutchens. The proof of that is in her powerful re-creation of pioneer days in the Sandhills of northwestern Nebraska in these autobiographical pieces written between 1929 and 1965. Those who have not read her classic Old Jules (1935) will find Sandhill Sundays and Other Recollections a colorful introduction to Sandoz Country, and those who have will look for the same landmarks and unforgettable people. They include the Sandoz patriarch, the fiery libertarian Old Jules; Marlizzie, the archetypal pioneer woman who was Mari's mother; siblings, chums, neighbors, homesteaders, and Indians, all individualized and defined by a harsh and lonely frontier. Dangers in every form—blizzards, fires, rattlesnakes, murderous men—are described, and, just as vividly, so are the pleasures afforded by country cooking, storytelling, pet...

A bold, biting novel by the author of Old Jules and Crazy Horse, The Tom-Walker spans three generations in a Midwestern family. The patriarch, Milt Stone, who lost a leg fighting in Grant's army, is the Tom-Walker, circus slang for man on stilts. After the Civil War he takes his family west to the Missouri country. There he gains a reputation as a raconteur and as a passionate defender of the little man who works hard, fights the wars, and gets squeezed out by powerful interests. He lives to see his son and grandson fight in World War I and World War II, respectively, and return home from those wars, maimed like him, only to have to resume a fight just to stay alive. Crowded with living characters, The Tom-Walker never loses the larger view of American history. From the Gilded Age to the Atomic Age, everybody is "trying to be either a Jay Gould or a Jesse James, out for easy money, everybody [is] wanting to be king of something: mines,...

Miss Morissa is a dramatic, moving novel of a young pioneering woman doctor on the brawling Nebraska frontier of the 1870s. Fleeing the East and a heartbreaking past, Morissa Kirk finds the North Platte River Valley rife with rumors of gold strikes. Fortune hunters, desperadoes, horse thieves, murderers make up the frontier society, while Indians roam the plains refusing to surrender their land to the gold-hungry white men. Near lawless Clarke Bridge she sets up her practice, treating white and Indian alike, receiving horses (if anything) in return for her services. Then, even as fame spreads of her skill, and acceptance slowly grows, Morissa becomes embroiled in the life-and-death struggle between the cattlemen and the homesteaders, a struggle as destructive as it was inevitable. In the telling of Morissa's story, Mari Sandoz has caught the whole turmoil of the changing frontier in the days of Custer, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill Cody.

Young Lance is his father's son when it comes to the daring needed for gaining honors in the war councils of the plains Sioux. Even greater is his seeing medicine. With eyes growing sharper, he watches the warring between tribes, the buffalo hunting, the daily routine—and shows it all in pictures drawn in the dust or on skins with charcoal and color sticks. But catching the story of Sioux society in the 1840s is not for an impetuous and unseasoned youth. Many adventures, sorrows, and hardships must pass before the village sings Lance's new name: Story Catcher, recorder of the history of his people.Rooted in legend, history, and empathetic understanding, The Story Catcher, Sandoz's last novel, won the Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award.

Crazy Horse, the legendary military leader of the Oglala Sioux whose personal power and social nonconformity contributed to his reputation as being "strange," fought in many famous battles, including the Little Bighorn, and held out tirelessly against the U.S. government's efforts to confine the Lakotas to reservations. Finally, in the spring of 1877 he surrendered, only to meet a violent death. More than a century later Crazy Horse continues to hold a special place in the hearts and minds of his people. Mari Sandoz offers a powerful evocation of the long-ago world and enduring spirit of Crazy Horse. Chosen as a 2007 One Book, One Nebraska selection, this edition of Crazy Horse includes discussion questions and a comprehensive glossary to enhance the reader's experience with this classic Sandoz text.

Slogum House "lay on the winter flat of Oxbow like the remains of some great, hulking animal that had foraged the region long ago, leaving its old gray carcass to dry and bleach at the foot of the hogback." Ruled by Gulla Slogum, the house was headquarters for a clan that terrorized what it couldn't seduce or steal. Using her daughter as poisoned bait and her sons as predators, Gulla plotted to put a whole county under her control. She had been insulted too often and worked too hard; now she sought power, land, and revenge.

Praised for swift action and beauty of language, The Horsecatcher is Mari Sandoz's first novel about the Indians she knew so well. Without ever leaving the world of a Cheyenne tribe in the 1830s, she creates a youthful protagonist many readers will recognize in themselves. Young Elk is expected to be a warrior, but killing even an enemy sickens him. He would rather catch and tame the mustangs that run in herds. Sandoz makes it clear that his determination to be a horsecatcher will require a moral and physical courage equal to that of any warrior. And if he must earn the right to live as he wishes, he must also draw closer to family and community.