The Life of Hon. William F. Cody, Known as Buffalo Bill
By William F. Cody, edited and with an introduction by Frank Christianson
(University of Nebraska Press, paperback, list price $27.95)
“Buffalo Bill” Cody was one hell of a frontiersman and self-promoter, at a time when Americans were hungry for Wild West heroes.
William F. Cody published his part-fiction, part-true illustrated autobiography in 1879, at age 33, recounting his adventures (to that point) as an explorer, Indian fighter, buffalo hunter, Pony Express rider, temporary Medal of Honor winner, and theatrical entertainer.
This new reprint of Buffalo Bill’s book (the original version; others followed) has been edited and provided with a well-written introduction and three appendices by Frank Christianson, an associate professor of English at Brigham Young University. Christianson is author of Philanthropy in British and American Fiction: Dickens, Hawthorne, Eliot, and Howells. Twenty-six additional images and photographs related to Buffalo Bill also have been added.
One helpful feature of Christianson’s book is a chronology of William F. Cody’s event-filled and promotion-filled life. He was born in an Iowa farmhouse in 1846 and lived long enough to become a movie producer four years before his death in 1917.
Interestingly, William F. Cody”s autobiography made it to print just as his frontier career was ending and his career as a stage entertainer and promoter was taking off. Within four years, his “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show would be on its way to becoming, in Christianson’s words, “one of the most popular traveling exhibitions in entertainment history.”
Christianson notes: “William Cody’s seventy-one years were a time of accelerating change in America, and he found himself in the midst of many of the era’s most defining events. Like the ever-shifting boundary of the American frontier, Cody’s life was characterized by frenetic movement.”
Christianson points out that “Cody, like his father, was an indefatigable entrepreneur” who tried his hand at many things, including unsuccessfully attempting to manage an inn and create a town, but succeeding as a buffalo hunter and military scout, two occupations which “had the most direct bearing upon his future celebrity.”
William F. Cody’s book and Frank Christianson’s expanding materials add up to some very entertaining and informative reading. Yes, Buffalo Bill left behind a legacy often based on self-interest and inflated images of life and events in the American West. But the Honorable William F. Cody also made, Christianson contends, “a valuable contribution to the records of our Western frontier history.”
– Si Dunn‘s latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle. He is a freelance book reviewer and a former technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist.
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