Did it take an Englishman to write the first American western? Long before American writers of western tales began their story telling, English authors including G.A. Henty were composing stories about the American westward expansion.
A frank, manly lad, Frank Norris, and his cousin, Fred Barkley, are rivals in the heirship of a considerable property. Frank Norris falls into a trap laid by Fred Barkley, and while under a false accusation of theft foolishly leaves England for America. Norris works his passage before the mast, joins a small band of hunters, crosses a tract of country infested with Indians to the California gold diggings, and is successful both as digger and trader. Features that are popular in television and western movies can be found in the writing of G.A. Henty long before it became standard cowboy fare. Wagon trains moving across the prairie, stagecoach robberies, buffalo hunts, ambushes, and more await the reader.
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