A Texas Ranger

Rating:
Summary: A Texas Ranger
Review: It should be of little wonder that A Texas Ranger, originally printed in 1899, has been through several reprints. This small book remains one of the most readable and compelling accounts of life on the rough and rugged Texas frontier among the famed Texas Rangers in the 1870's. With a foreword by the noted western writer J. Frank Dobie, and an introduction by current day historian Stephen L. Harding, author N.A. Jennings recounts with clarity and intensity his first-hand experiences as a young easterner who comes to Texas to find his fortune. What Jennings actually finds is adventure beyond description in a land that abounds in beauty and majesty while frought with danger and hardship. The author's depictions of real-life events along the Texas-Mexico border are told in first person and include his recollections of fights at Las Cuevas and run-ins with such outlaws as King Fisher, John Wesley Hardin, and Sam Bass. The reader, through the eyes of this talented writer, is offered a look into the action-packed old West. The book serves to accentuate the impact that the daring and hearty young Rangers had in ridding the frontier of Mexican raiders and the lawless riffraff that found its way to Texas in the mid-nineteenth century. While A Texas Ranger makes an interesting read, the book itself is not without controversy. Famed Texas historian Walter Prescott Webb characterized the book as one that "abounds in errors and misrepresentations." However, Jennings fully acknowledges that his book, written some twenty-five years after his experiences in Texas, is based largely upon his recollections of events at the time and is adequately footnoted throughout. From this reviewer's perspective, A Texas Ranger is an interesting and engaging story, one that most readers will have a difficult time in putting down.