Research Catalog

Title

True tales of the Mojave desert : from talking rocks to Yucca Man / edited by Peter Wild.

Publication

Santa Fe : Center for American Places, 2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Wild, Peter.

Description

xx, 215 pages : illustrations, map; 23 cm

Summary

"True Tales of the Mojave Desert is the first anthology to explore the role of the Mojave in the American imagination, from prehistory to the present time, from fantasy to reality. Wild provides fifty-five selections that will delight, inform, and surprise readers who are drawn to the lore of this famous place." "The readings - excerpted from books, letters, magazines, newspapers, official reports, and personal reminiscences - draw on Wild's many years of research in and on the Mojave, and each entry is introduced by the editor. The collection also features a gallery of engaging historic illustrations."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

Mojave Desert > Literary collections

Contents

The talking rocks and the Chemebuevi origin myth / A. L. Kroeber -- What the sky and earth did : the Mohave origin myth / A. L. Kroeber -- The Mojave slave trade / Gerald A. Smith and Clifford Walker -- First crossing by a white man / Francisco Garces -- Jedediab Smith gets his nose bloodied : a massacre of mountain men / Harrison Clifford Dale -- A war whoop : incident on the Fremont expedition / John C. Fremont -- The Mormons : shooting an ox / James S. Brown -- The deserta horribilis / William L. Manly -- White slave girls / Olive Oatman -- Fantastic experiment with camels / Stephen Bonsal -- More monsters : a steamboat on the Colorado / Joseph C. Ives -- Military life : as reflected in letters / Irene J. Brennan -- The Mojave outlaw culture / Richard D. Thompson and Kathryn L. Thompson -- The gates fly open : Mojave tourism begins / Charles F. Lummis -- The Mojave as the new Araby : "the desert gives forth perfume" / From Redlands to Bagdad -- Greed civilizes the Mojave : "scarlet women," horn spoons, and wizards / Lou V. Chapin -- McTeague : the Mojave as grim novel / Frank Norris -- The Mojave as colorful reminiscences / Carita Selvas -- The Mojave : afterlife to an aesthetician / John C. Van Dyke -- A strange story by a governor's daughter / Abbey Waterman -- Wolves on desert : "a high carnival of crime" / Harry Carr -- Willie boy : the pursuit of an Indian outlaw transfixes the nation / Indian Outlaw Killed Himself -- The Harvey girls : boon to the Mojave / Lesley Poling-Kempes -- John Burroughs : a famous eastern litterateur visits a ghost town / Mary Beal -- "Th' only Christian thing to do" : death and Death Valley Scotty / W. Storrs Lee -- A human comet blazes across the Mojave : the Los Angeles to Phoenix uproar / Al G. Waddell -- Hollywood thrives on the Mojave / W. Storrs Lee -- The Mojave : soul's desire of a wealthy feminist / Edna Brush Perkins -- Snipers and riots : violence along the railroad / Santa Fe Train Fired Upon -- Booze makes beasts, not Gods / Larry M. Vrendenburgh -- The happy beginnings of aviation / Rockey Spicer -- The bottomless womb / Edwin Corle -- The worst town on the desert / Dix Van Dyke -- The dry Mojave slakes the cities : prohibition / Clifford James Walker -- The Mojave as cultural icon / Randall Henderson and J. Wilson McKenney -- Route 66 : "a nice green place" / John Steinbeck -- The Mojave blooms : crying out / Donald Culross Peattie -- Camp clipper : "dear God, bless this food" / Jack Mitchell -- Slime in a small town / Ramona Stewart -- Urges : jackrabbit homesteads and cloudbursts / June LeMert Paxton -- Dying hard : the myth of abundance / Randall Henderson -- Charles Manson : doing the devil's business on the Mojave / Bob Murphy -- The story of the wooden children / Ann Japenga -- An English critic's desert aesthetics / Peter Reyner Banham -- The last word on Las Vegas / Peter Reyner Banham -- Murder on the Mojave / Eric Malnic and Christopher Heredia -- Area 51 : the military base that doesn't exist / Stuart L. Brown -- Locals as dolts / David Darlington -- The locals revolt / Dennis Casebier -- Talking with the spirits : the California Desert Protection Act / Susan Zwinger -- The desert tortoise : "walking raviolis" / Michael Tennesen -- The jitters : still shaking / Tom Gorman and Mitchell Landsberg -- Yucca mountain : the world's most dangerous poison / Evelyn Nieves -- Giant rock : the F.B.I. and space visitors / Michele Pinney -- Bigfoot on the Mojave / Ann Japenga.

ISBN

• 1930066198 :
• 1930066201 (pbk.) :

OCLC

• ocm56451857
• SCSB-5160122

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries