Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Every Boy's Dream, once

Customer Rating:

"Log of a Cowboy" is as advertised, a simply written narrative of a trail drive, as straight-forward as its cowboy hero. While not great literature (or is it?), it has a freshness that makes it fun to read. The sheer labor of the trail drives made them heroic! The image of hundreds of trail herds making their way north is awesome. Many modernizations of Andy Adams' original novel have been made. This one is easily readable and very enjoyable. Jack Hannah's song based on it, "Trail Drive", is true to this story that tells of trail boss Flood and the trail hands' adventures in Dodge City, as they "trail 'em slow" to Montana. If you yearn for a simpler time, love adventure, remember "Wagon Train" and "Rawhide" fondly, or just want to be transported to another life, this book will do it.

The Log of a Cowboy	Customer Rating:
I was expecting a little more excitement in this book than what I read. I was a little disappointed, to the point that I almost didn't bother to finish it. I wouldn't buy this book again if I had the chance.

Excellent read, poor edition quality

Customer Rating:

I'd give The Log of a Cowboy 5 stars as an excellent story of life on the cattle drive trails. It's a great read... But, the quality of this particular edition is very poor. Blurry print, ink blotches, and even some unreadable sections, makes this edition a poor choice. It looks as though someone just ran the text through a poor quality copier. Given a price of $38.00, I would certainly expect better. Try any of the paperback editions, and avoid this one.

Too Familiar

Customer Rating:

I have completely lost track of the number of editions and printings I have seen of this book, over the years, and a quick search with Google will produce a number of different free e-texts available on-line. However, almost every edition known to me is missing an introduction; there is therefore (1) no information about the author, and (2) no information as to whether what we have is a novel written in documentary style, or an actual nonfiction account of a typical trail drive in the early 1880s. Well, folks, it's a novel, as the largely symbolic names for the characters might indicate: Priest, Flood, Officer, Strayhorn, Forrest, Blades, Wheat, Straw, etc., etc. I finally got around to reading it, and enjoyed it. Nothing spectacular or overdrawn--- it would not be surprising to discover that every incident is based on something that directly happened to the author or one of his cowboy sidekicks during his trail-herding days. All the classic situations are here, including visits to Dodge City and Oglalla, fiendishly difficult river crossings, stampedes, rustlers, con-men and segundos, chuck wagons and remudas, saloon gunfights and card-sharping. The number of 20th Century western authors who turned to this 1903 novel to obtain some authentic details to insert into their own trail-drive sequences is probably also close to uncountable.

Stampedes, Dance Hall Girls, Shootouts... It's All Here - a review of "The Log of a Cowboy"

Customer Rating:

"The Log of a Cowboy" was published in 1903 and tells the story of a five month long trail drive that took the circle-dot long horns from just a little south of Brownsville up into the Indian territory of the Blackfoot Agency - a 'pasear' of nearly 3000 miles. When I came to this book, I didn't exactly know what to expect. The only other western I had read since childhood was "The Virginian", a book that seemed very fictional (although I enjoyed it greatly). "Log of a Cowboy" is entirely different. It reads more like an autobiography -- which some historians have suggested it is. Certainly there is an authentic feel to the book that is unmistakable. Rather than being over the top, the stampedes and gun battles are underplayed, although they certainly maintain their own levels of excitement. My own response to the book: I found it hard to put it down. The story was full of adventure and cow and cowboy trivia and it was just plain fun. I ended my read with a great deal more respect for the cowboy and his craft. Who knew that cattle liked to bed down on higher terrain?!? Five Stars. Despite being fiction, "Log of a Cowboy" remains a wonderful historical resource. Persons interested in the Old West should find it a satisfying read, although they should not expect a overly polished presentation. And for those who are considering this book for younger readers it should be noted that there are some very non-PC(politically correct) speech and actions. This book was, afterall, written over one hundred years ago. ~reviewed by Pam T.~