If you've been following me on Gadling, you know I'm in Oxford at the moment. I'm busy working on my next book for Osprey Publishing, which is about the fateful raid on Northfield, Minnesota, by Jesse James and his gang in 1876.
You'd think I'd be feeling a bit out of touch with the Wild West here among the dreaming spires, and you'd be right except that I've found an extremely rare book on the Northfield robbery at Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Titled The Northfield Tragedy, it's the first account written about the robbery, penned by a journalist who arrived on the scene hours after the smoke cleared. He was among the first to interview the citizens who fought off the robbers, and he followed along with the posses as they hunted down the James-Younger gang.
This book is almost impossible to find in the United States. Only four copies are known to exist, none of which are in Missouri, where I'm based when I'm in the country. Most modern books about the James-Younger gang don't cite this important source. The reason the Bodleian has a copy is because it was reprinted by the English Westerners Society. The Bodleian being a copyright library, they had a copy. I would have never heard of it if I hadn't been browsing Jesse James books in the Bodleian. So here I am reading a Wild West rarity in the most English of cities!
Home to author Sean McLachlan and the House Divided series of Civil War horror novels. A Fine Likeness, the first in the series, is available now. This blog is dedicated to the Trans-Mississippi Civil War and historical fiction, and occasionally veers off into adventure travel when I go somewhere interesting.
Looking for more from Sean McLachlan? He also hangs out on the Midlist Writer blog, where he talks about writing, adventure travel, caving, and everything else he gets up to. He also reproduces all the posts from Civil War Horror, so drop on by!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Finding a Wild West rarity in Oxford
Labels:
Jesse James,
Missouri,
Missouri history,
Old West,
Oxford,
research,
Wild West,
writing
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Got something to say? Feel free! No anonymous comments allowed, though. Too many spammers and haters on the Internet.