The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales

Robert E. Howard turned to writing comic and dialect Western tales only late in his career, but he found an immediate and continuously successful market for them, and they are in many respects his most accomplished and polished works. The sixteen tales collected here are some of the best of his stories, featuring Breckinridge Elkins, Pike Bearfield, and Buckner J. Grimes—three inimitable characters who lead well-intentioned lives of perpetual confusion, mischance, and outright catastrophe. Fifteen of the stories were published between 1934 and 1937 in Action Stories, Argosy, or Cowboy Stories; the other remained unpublished for more than thirty years. Many of these stories were rewritten for book publication and have never been reprinted in their original form. They are reminiscent of traditional southwestern tall tales, told in dialect, featuring larger-than-life characters, swift action, broad satire, and wry humor.