In my latest novel, Copper for the Countess, I revisit characters and places from my first foray into the world of writing Historical Western Romance. This time, because I’ve established this fictional place in a time long ago, I concentrated more on what made the houses on this ranch true homes. One of the first things I did for my hero, a foreman on a cattle ranch, was give him a personal library in his house. While only a few shelves exist in his main room, they tell a story about literature and its impact during the expansion westward.
Long ago, when I read an article about Louis L’Amour, he mentioned that some of his cowboys had expansive vocabularies. I remember he said he’d never met a cowboy who hadn’t read Shakespeare, or couldn’t rattle off favorite poems or snatches of great literature. L’Amour postulated that life on the open range left a man a lot of empty time on his hands. Time when he could read a book, and swap books with his friends. Doing a little research of my own, I discovered that many people in the west were better read than we’d guess. We had our own authors Americans loved, but we spent a fair amount of time reading books from across the pond, too.
So my cowboy is a literary cowboy. He loves a good book. On his shelves, you’d find a battered copy of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. That particular title gained notoriety in America during the Civil War. Soldiers on both sides of the war took copies of that book into battle. So much so that the book earned the nickname “Lee’s Miserables,” after a confederate general. (Source, Opinionator, NYT.)
Collections of Shakespeare’s work was greatly revered. Of Shakespeare, a cowboy is said to have said, “That fellow Shakespeare could
sure spill the real stuff. He’s the only poet I ever seen what fed on raw meat.” (Source, The Washington Free Beacon.)
Jules Verne, a founder of science fiction, was popular in the late nineteenth century, too. We don’t often consider that he was publishing tales about journeying to the center of the earth or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea when drifters went from one dusty town to another.
By the 1890’s, when my most recent book takes place, books were available at low costs. MacMillan’s Pocket Classics were widely available – I’ve come across several in used bookstores and antique shops in the west, with penciled in names of men and women who lived in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Idaho. A cowboy might have Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe in his saddle bag and trade it with a friend for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The love of literature is older than the printing press, and putting beloved books into the hands of my cowboys makes them that much more real, and tangible, to my readers.
In this newest book, Copper for the Countess, my heroine comes upon my cowboy’s library in this way: Evelyn volunteered to dust the bookshelves, and she took extra time to examine the titles of the books […]. The book titles were rather surprising. Many of them she had heard of or seen in London bookshops and libraries. Though none of the volumes she’d seen before looked as worn or weather-beaten as the books in Mr. Morgan’s care. He had a shelf with several volumes of poetry, including Tennyson—England’s poet laureate. He had Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, and the Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. American titles and authors greeted her, too. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn sat together, as the two friends ought. – Copper for the Countess: An American Victorian Romance
In my story, a Victorian countess – widowed and with a child – makes her way to the west. When she meets a ranch foreman with a heart of gold and a love of the written word, she takes a chance on him and his own adopted children. I hope you’ll take a peek at my book, and maybe grab a copy for yourself.
I’m giving away signed paperbacks for two winners. One copy of Cooper for the Countess. One copy of the first book in the series, Silver Dollar Duke.
What are some of your favorite books mentioned in the stories you read?
What is your favorite classic novel?
Hi! Alissa Callen here.
survive. A cowboy needs to be resilient, courageous and honourable. He needs to finish what he starts and to do what needs to be done. His word needs to be his bond and his loyalty unquestionable. A cowboy also needs respect for himself as well as those around him.
Headstrong cowgirl Peta Dixon has put her life on hold this Christmas to prove she can run her ranch as well as any man. There isn’t anything she can’t ride, fix, or stare down, and the only things to scare her are long hemlines and sky-high heels.
