Orphans Preferred

by Christopher Corbett
Category: "U.S. History - Cultural"
Pages:255
Year of Publication:2003
Date Added:08/31/2004
Date Read:08/31/2004
Notes:Subtitle: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express.

The Pony Express is one of the most celebrated and enduring chapters in the history of the United States. It is a story of the all-American traits of bravery, bravado and entrepreneurial risk that are part of the very fabric of the Old West. No image of the West in the mid-1800s is more familiar, more-beloved, and more powerful than that of the lone rider galloping the mail across hostile Indian territory. No image is more revered. And none is less understood.

Although rooted in actual events and real people, the saga of the Pony Express has become an American legend, embellished in everything from dime novels, Mark Twain's Roughing It, and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to the western film classics of John Ford, the art of Frederic Remington, and scores of children's book.
My Rating: 6

Reviews for Orphans Preferred

Review - Orphans Preferred

The Pony Express carried the mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California for 18 months during 1860-61 and lost probably a million dollars in the process. It was celebrated at the time, but not well recorded until much later, when facts were hard to track down.

Corbett spends a great deal of time on biographies of writers who made up stories and men who made false claims that they rode. It was good, but disjointed and often off the point.

Reviewed by Roger on 2004-08-31 20:14:24

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