The Tall Tales Davy Crockett by Michael A Lofaro

The Tall Tales Davy Crockett by Michael A Lofaro

Published from 1835 to 1856, the Crockett almanacs were the primary force in the creation of a tall tale Davy Crockett as our country's first comic superman. In these rare almanacs, the historical Crockett became a fictional backwoods screamer who could "run faster,?jump higher,?squat lower,?dive deeper,?stay under longer,?and come out drier, than any man in the whole country."

As the best known of the early ring-tailed roarers, Davy also became an integral building block in the humor of the Old Southwest. Ben Harding, Crockett's fictional sidekick, warned nineteenth-century readers that the "terrificashus" adventures of Davy, Mike Fink, the "riproarious she-males," and the fabulous woodcuts that illustrated them were so funny that "You had best to hoop your ribs before you reed 'em or you will shake your bowels out a Laffing."

Although the significance of the Nashville almanacs in initiating and developing Crockett's mythic world is an accepted tenet in the study of American humor, the second series of almanacs has never before been reproduced in facsimile, and two thirds of the tales have never before been collected or reprinted in any readily accessible form.

In his introduction, Michael A. Lofaro examines the history and evolution of these tall tales and stresses their importance both as transitional markers in the growth of the Crockett legend and as cultural mirrors of the attitudes of their publishers and readers.

Michael Lofaro is professor of American literature and American and Cultural Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has authored and edited numerous volumes and is coeditor, with Hugh Davis, of James Agee Rediscovered: The Journals of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Other New Manuscripts. He is also the general editor for the ten-volume series, The Works of James Agee, and the editor of its forthcoming first volume, A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author's Text.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780870495267
ISBN 10	0870495267
Title	The Tall Tales Davy Crockett
Author	Michael A Lofaro
Series	Tennesseana Editions
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Tennessee Press
Year published	1987-08-30
Number of pages	164
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.