Life and Adventures of Frank and Jesse James: The Infamous Western Outlaws
Civil War Guerrillas, Bank Robberies, and the Making of an Outlaw LegendBy Joseph A. Dacus
Length9h 22m
About this audiobook
Joseph A. Dacus's Life and Adventures of Frank and Jesse James: The Infamous Western Outlaws is a sensational yet historically revealing account of the notorious Missouri brothers and their careers as guerrillas, train robbers, and fugitives. Combining purported biography, frontier anecdote, moral commentary, and dramatic reconstruction, the book belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of outlaw narratives that transformed contemporary crime into popular legend. Its brisk, episodic prose, emphatic judgments, and fascination with pursuit and violence reflect the conventions of dime literature and post–Civil War popular history, while its portrayal of the James brothers exposes the era's competing ideas of law, honor, sectional loyalty, and frontier justice. The volume is therefore valuable not simply as a record of events, but as an artifact in the cultural creation of the Western outlaw. Dacus wrote amid intense public fascination with Jesse James, whose exploits were reported, embellished, and politically interpreted throughout the reconstruction-era Midwest. His treatment reflects a culture still marked by Civil War grievances, local loyalties, sensational journalism, and the rapid expansion of mass-market print. Rather than approaching the James legend with modern detachment, Dacus participates in its formation, preserving the rumors, stereotypes, and moral tensions through which nineteenth-century readers understood notorious violence. This book is recommended to readers interested in the James brothers, Civil War memory, American folklore, popular publishing, and the evolution of Western myth. It should be read critically, alongside modern scholarship, but its very mixture of fact, legend, and rhetoric makes it an indispensable primary source for studying how outlawry became American cultural mythology.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.9 (27)
Includes Amazon, Goodreads
GenreBiography and Memoir
Length9 hrs 22 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateOct 20, 2021
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1100$ REWARD ON MY HEAD – Powerful & Unflinching Memoirs Of Former Slaves: 28 Narratives in One Volume
2Chapter I. The James Family
3Chapter II. Frank and Jesse
4Chapter III. In the Guerrilla Camp
5Chapter IV. Bloody War
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6Chapter V. At the Sack of Lawrence, Kansas
7Chapter VI. A Gory Record
8Chapter VII. Adventures in Separate Fields
9Chapter VIII. The Brandenburg, Ky., Tragedy
10Chapter IX. The Liberty Bank Affair
11Chapter X. Jesse's Sortie Against the Militiamen
12Chapter XI. In the Hands of Friends
13Chapter XII. The Russellville Bank Robbery
14Chapter XIII. On the Pacific Slope
15Chapter XIV. Were They Driven to Outlawry?
16Chapter XV. The Gallatin Bank Tragedy
17Chapter XVI. Attempt to Arrest the Boys
18Chapter XVII. Outrage at Columbia, Kentucky
19Chapter XVIII. Out of Exile
20Chapter XIX. The Corydon Raid
21Chapter XX. The Cash Box of the Fair
22Chapter XXI. Ste. Genevieve
23Chapter XXII. A Railway Train Robbed in Iowa
24Chapter XXIII. The Gains' Place Stage Robbery
25Chapter XXIV. Gadshill
26Chapter XXV. After Gadshill
27Chapter XXVI. Whicher's Ride to Death
28Chapter XXVII. A Night Raid of Detectives
29Chapter XXVIII. Proposed Amnesty
30Chapter XXIX. The San Antonio-Austin Stage Plundered
31Chapter XXX. Farmer Askew's Fate
32Chapter XXXI. Gold Dust—the Muncie Business
33Chapter XXXII. Other Exploits
34Chapter XXXIII. Jesse's Wooing and Wedding
35Chapter XXXIV. A Dream of Love
36Chapter XXXV. Fair Annie Ralston, the Outlaw's Bride
37Chapter XXXVI. A Seventeen Thousand Dollar Haul
38Chapter XXXVII. In Minnesota
39Chapter XXXVIII. The Attack at Northfield—haywood's Death
40Chapter XXXIX. Escape of Frank and Jesse James
41Chapter XL. A Visit to Carmen
42Chapter XLI. The Robbers and Their Friends
43Chapter XLII. Excursions Into Mexico
44Chapter XLIII. Death to Border Brigands
45Chapter XLIV. A Golden Harvest Reaped by Outlaws
46Chapter XLV. A Visit to Frank James' Home
47Chapter XLVI. Epistles of Jesse James
48Chapter XLVII. Glendale
49Chapter XLVIII. Hunting Clues
50Chapter XLIX. George W. Shepherd
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