The Great American Outlaw

The Great American Outlaw
Author: Frank Richard Prassel
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 1996-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780806128429

This book explores in depth the origins, development, and prospects of outlawry and of the relationship of outlaws to the social conditions of changing times. Throughout American history you will find larger-than-life brigands in every period and every region. Often, because we hunger for simple justice, we romanticize them to the point of being unable to separate fact from fiction. Frank Richard Prassel brings this home in a thorough and fascinating examination of the concept of outlawry from Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, and Blackbeard through Jean Lafitte, Pancho Villa, and Billy the Kid to more modern personalities such as John Dillinger, Claude Dallas, and D. B. Cooper. A separate chapter on molls, plus equal treatment in the histories of gangs, traces women's involvement in outlaw activities. Prassel covers the folklore as well as the facts, even including an appendix of ballads by and about outlaws. He makes clear how this motley group of bandits, pirates, highwaymen, desperadoes, rebels, hoodlums, renegades, gangsters, and fugitives—who stand tall in myth—wither in the light of truth, but flourish in the movies. As he tells the stories, there is little to confirm that Jesse and Frank James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Daltons, Pretty Boy Floyd, Ma Barker, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, Belle Starr, the Apache Kid, or any of the so-called good badmen, did anything that did not enrich or otherwise benefit themselves. But there is plenty of evidence, in the form of slain victims and ruined lives, to show how many ways they caused harm. The Great American Outlaw is as much an excellent survey on the phenomenon as it is a brilliant exposition of the larger than-life figures who created it. Above all, it is a tribute to that aspect of humanity that Americans admire most and that Prassel describes as a willingness "to fight, however hopelessly, against exhibitions of privilege."

The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure

The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure
Author: H. R. Hoeward
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781330199367

Excerpt from The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure: In Capturing and Exposing the Great "Western Land Pirate" And His Gang, in Connexion With the Evidence; Also of the Trials, Confessions, and Execution of a Number of Murrell's Associates in the State of Mississippi During the Summer of 1835, and the Execu The public have long been expecting the final history of Virgil A. Stewart's perilous and romantic adventure in capturing "John A. Murrell," the great "Western Land Pirate." We now propose giving a full and perfect account of that strange performance, in connexion with the evidence sustaining each important fact as it is related. We make no pretensions to author-craft, or skill in working up materials so as to heighten interest; nor is it necessary. The deep interest that every Southerner and every honest man must feel in the subject matter of this history, is sufficient to invest a plain and simple statement of facts with attraction. Our only care has been to adhere strictly to the truth, and to exhibit the details in a clear and intelligible narrative. We have commenced with a brief account of Mr. Stewart's early life to the time when he undertook the capture of Murrell and his party. We then continue with his adventure on that expedition, and conclude with a full history of the insurrectionary movements among the negroes in the southern country during the summer of 1835. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A History of American Crime Fiction

A History of American Crime Fiction
Author: Chris Raczkowski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2017-10-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108548431

A History of American Crime Fiction places crime fiction within a context of aesthetic practices and experiments, intellectual concerns, and historical debates generally reserved for canonical literary history. Toward that end, the book is divided into sections that reflect the periods that commonly organize American literary history, with chapters highlighting crime fiction's reciprocal relationships with early American literature, romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism. It surveys everything from 17th-century execution sermons, the detective fiction of Harriet Spofford and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, to the films of David Lynch, HBO's The Sopranos, and the podcast Serial, while engaging a wide variety of critical methods. As a result, this book expands crime fiction's significance beyond the boundaries of popular genres and explores the symbiosis between crime fiction and canonical literature that sustains and energizes both.

The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure in Capturing and Exposing the Great Western Land Pirate and His Gang, in Connexion with the Evidence; Also of the Trials, Confessions, and Execution of a Number of Murrell's Associates in the State of

The History of Virgil A. Stewart, and His Adventure in Capturing and Exposing the Great Western Land Pirate and His Gang, in Connexion with the Evidence; Also of the Trials, Confessions, and Execution of a Number of Murrell's Associates in the State of
Author: H R Howard
Publisher: Andesite Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2015-08-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9781296800536

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

History of the Detection, Conviction, Life and Designs of John A. Murrell the Great Western Land Pirate

History of the Detection, Conviction, Life and Designs of John A. Murrell the Great Western Land Pirate
Author: Augustus Q. Walton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781940127026

Virgil A. Stewart happened to be in the right place at the right time. In January 1834, he offered to help a friend in Madison County, Tennessee track down two missing slaves who were believed to have been stolen by a local thief named John A. Murrell. Posing as a man looking for a lost horse, Stewart won Murrell's confidence over the course of several days and the thief shared with him stories of his exploits and revealed various criminal acts he had committed, including robbery, slave stealing, and murder. Murrell also admitted to being the leader of a vast criminal empire with one thousand members-some of whom were well-respected men in their communities-known as the Mystic Clan of the Confederacy. He wanted to convince slaves across the South to rise up against their masters on Christmas night in 1835, during which time Murrell and his clan would rob on a grand scale. History of the Detection, Conviction, Life and Designs of John A. Murrel, the Great Western Land Pirate...To Which is Added a Biographical Sketch of Mr. Virgil A. Stewart was first published in 1835, and is the primary source for the life, crimes, and legend of John A. Murrell, a man Stewart labeled "the great Western Land Pirate." Stewart transformed a petty thief from Denmark, Tennessee into a criminal mastermind with a network of like-minded rogues that stretched across the Old Southwest.