American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett

Overview

The new popular biography of one of America's most enduring symbols of the Old West.

David Crockett was an adventurer, a pioneer, and a tragic hero who died at the Alamo. But the life of the real Crockett has been largely obscured and overshadowed by his mythology, turning this honest, unassuming backwoodsman into a larger-than-life, Disney-fied character in a coonskin cap.

In his short but distinguished lifetime, Crockett became America's original celebrity, frequently written about in newspapers and becoming an integral part of the folklore of his day. Opportunistic and clever, and presciently media-savvy, Crockett parlayed his humble origins to his advantage, using his charismatic frontiersman persona to win elections as a three-time U.S. Congressman and even a nomination as presidential candidate. The 1834 publication of his memoir, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett--by Himself, one of the first autobiographies of its kind, went through seven printings, and sent Crockett on the first-ever book tour across the Eastern seaboard.

At heart, Crockett was unassuming and down-to-earth, obstinate and independent to a fault. In a beautifully descriptive narrative, American Legend takes readers from Crockett's childhood hardships, near-death experiences, and meager education through his unlikely rise to Congress. Though his death at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, only added to his considerable fame and notoriety, the common David Crockett emerges here as never before: a rugged individual, an American original, and an enduring symbol of the American frontier.

Editorial Reviews

Levy presents a sympathetic but unremarkable biography of the legendary frontiersman in colloquial if occasionally florid prose (an election loss "burned into Crockett like a brand searing a cow's flank"). Those whose image of Crockett was formed by the cultishly successful Disney treatment will find much that is familiar: the Indian fighter with Andrew Jackson, the congressmen from Tennessee and, finally, the Texas patriot who died defending the Alamo. But Levy (Echoes on Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge) offers more (although not a lot more) in the way of background and complexity, and is willing to expose some of Crockett's deficiencies without making judgments: Crockett clearly indulged his wanderlust at the expense of his wife, a strong figure in her own right, and was, for a variety of reasons, an ineffective, bumbling politician. But despite his faults, readers will find Crockett likable and talented. In Levy's view, Crockett's abilities were expansive, and he opines that Crockett's bestselling 1834 autobiography "prefigures by some fifty years the literary genre of 'realism,' with nothing remotely like it" until Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And Crockett's falling out with President Jackson over, in part, Jackson's brutal Indian Removal Act of 1830 is to the frontiersman's credit. B&w illus. (Jan.)
Copyright (c) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Author Information

Bio of Buddy Levy

Buddy Levy is the author of American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett and Echoes on Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge. As a freelance journalist he has covered adventure sports and lifestyle around the world. He is clinical associate professor of English at Washington State University, and lives in northern Idaho with his wife, Camie, and two children.

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews available at this time. To add your review, Register or Sign In to your account using our free eBook Library Software.

Additional Info

Imprint

Berkley Trade

Filesize

2.39 MB

Number of Pages

352

eBook ISBN

9781440682919