The essential J. Frank Dobie / J. Frank Dobie ; edited and with an Introduction by Steven L. Davis.

Print version record.

Includes index.

A Autobiographical essays, short stories, and newspaper pieces from the Dobie Papers at the Wittliff Collections (some were previously edited by Bertha McKee Dobie, some are new) in the new edition of Steven L. Davis.

A Introduction: Why an essential Dobie? -- Part 1. Coyote wisdom: This, I believe -- How my life took its turn -- Voice of the coyote -- Part 2. On the trail with a storyteller: Across the Bolson de Mapimi: echoes of the Comanche War trail -- Charles Goodnight of Amplitude -- Searching for lost Tayopa -- The last of the mountain men -- On the trail of the panther -- Part 3. Open range tales: Snowdrift: the hunt for Montana's last wolf -- The dream that saved Wilbarger -- Sancho, the tamale-loving Longhorn -- Part 4. The Southwestern tempo: Earth rhythms and the Southwestern tempo -- The Mesquite -- What every curandera knows -- The madstone cure -- Praying for rain -- The campfire -- Part 5. The Brush Country: A plot of earth -- The buried gold at Fort Ramirez -- I remember Buck -- Part 6. Wild and free: Cedar fever -- The beginnings of Big Bend National Park -- The Longhorn's dying bellow -- Stompedes -- Wild and free -- The Paisano, our fellow countryman

Part 7. Europe amid two world wars: ... from two letters to Bertha -- Dobie during World War I -- A day with the Basques -- Birds under bombs: in England during World War II -- Across the Rhine: travels in postwar Germany -- Part 8. Texas needs brains: Texas needs brains -- True patriots and Pappy O'Daniel -- Only a man with eyes in the back of his head -- ... Dobie on civil rights -- The difference between liberals and reactionaries -- On censorship -- Part 9. Life and literature of the Southwest: Professional educators and the "unctuous elaboration of the obvious" -- On the Texas Institute of Letters -- Along the Devils River-and away from the cedar pollen -- Change, change, change -- Two Texas barbecues, sixty years apart -- The writer and his region -- A corner forever Texas -- Acknowledgments -- Story credits.

"Steven L. Davis has combed through the works of this renowned Texas author, gathering together in one volume Dobie's most vital writings. He then meticulously edited Dobie's stories and essays to "prune away some of the brushy undergrowth" and bring Dobie's folksy, erudite voice bounding back to life. The result is The Essential J. Frank Dobie, a treasury that introduces new readers to Dobie--and reminds older ones that Dobie produced some of the most fascinating, best-informed writing about Texas. Dobie bore eloquent witness to the passing of ancient pastoral lifeways and he captured priceless social history, collecting vanishing folklore and vibrant human stories overlooked by historians of the era. Davis, a Dobie biographer, searched for the stories only Dobie could tell--those enriched by his matchless personal adventures. Dobie rode twisting mountain trails throughout remote Mexico in search of lost mines. He helped inspire Big Bend National Park and led efforts to save the Texas Longhorn from extinction. During World War II, he dodged German V-1 bombs in England and later saw the Nazi death camps and toured Hitler's chancellery. Believing that "Texas Needs Brains," Dobie was decades ahead of his time in championing civil rights and protecting the environment"-- Provided by publisher

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