Jaime de Angulo

Dismantled and scattered just before his death, Jaime de Angulo’s poetic masterpiece Old Time Stories is now reconstituted for the first time in this edition. Jaime de Angulo’s Old Time Stories, a visual prose-poem drawing on his anthropological research among Indigenous communities in California, is a forgotten modernist treasure. Completed shortly before de Angulo’s death, the work has survived only in fragments, divided between an abridged 1953 publication and a limited edition from the 1970s. This new reconstituted edition gives contemporary readers—whether interested in experimental literature, linguistics, cultural anthropology, or Native American history—their first chance to engage with the complete work. Structured around children’s stories inspired by the Indigenous tales and legends de Angulo encountered directly during his studies, Old Time Stories uses illustrations, different typefaces, and other experimental formatting techniques to translate rich oral and pictographic traditions into the condensed form of print. Beyond its significance as an innovative work of American literary modernism, it interrogates the colonialist foundations of Western modernity through this very reworking of Western literary conventions.

Dismantled and scattered just before his death, Jaime de Angulo’s poetic masterpiece Old Time Stories is now reconstituted for the first time in this edition. Jaime de Angulo’s Old Time Stories, a visual prose-poem drawing on his anthropological research among Indigenous communities in California, is a forgotten modernist treasure. Completed shortly before de Angulo’s death, the work has survived only in fragments, divided between an abridged 1953 publication and a limited edition from the 1970s. This new reconstituted edition gives contemporary readers—whether interested in experimental literature, linguistics, cultural anthropology, or Native American history—their first chance to engage with the complete work. Structured around children’s stories inspired by the Indigenous tales and legends de Angulo encountered directly during his studies, Old Time Stories uses illustrations, different typefaces, and other experimental formatting techniques to translate rich oral and pictographic traditions into the condensed form of print. Beyond its significance as an innovative work of American literary modernism, it interrogates the colonialist foundations of Western modernity through this very reworking of Western literary conventions.

One of the most colorful and captivating writers of the twentieth century, Jaime de Angulo came to America to become a cowboy, not an author. And he did become a cowboy -- and a doctor, and a psychologist, and a highly regarded anthropologist. However, it was as a writer that he ultimately found his true calling. His stories uniquely represented the bohemian sensibility of the time, and he was known for infusing intellectualism into his coyote tales and shamanic mysticism. So vivid were his tales that Ezra Pound called him "the American Ovid," and William Carlos Williams claimed that de Angulo was "one of the most outstanding writers I have ever encountered.""The Lariat," which may well be his most important piece of fiction, is highlighted in this prize collection, along with other writings that have long been unavailable.

One of the most colorful and captivating writers of the 20th century, Jaime de Angulo came to America to become a cowboy, not an author. And he did become a cowboy--and a doctor, and a psychologist, and a highly regarded anthropologist. However, it was as a writer that he ultimately found his true calling. His stories uniquely represented the bohemian sensibility of the time, and he was known for infusing intellectualism into his coyote tales and shamanic mysticism. So vivid were his tales that Ezra Pound called him "the American Ovid," and William Carlos Williams claimed that de Angulo was "one of the most outstanding writers that I have ever encountered.""The Lariat," which may well be his most important piece of fiction, is highlighted in this prize collection, along with other writings that have long been unavailable.

The best-known work by the eccentric anthropologist Jaime de Angulo, Indians in Overalls is a fascinating account of his first linguistic field trip--in 1921--to the Achumawi tribe of northeastern California. The Pit River tribe had lived in the barren high country for thousands of years and, despite the harsh climate and difficult living conditions, they had developed an extraordinary complex language and a rich mythology. As he traveled with the tribe and learned the spoken language, he observed gambling games and shamanistic practices, and he collected some of the marvelous stories told around the fire in the winter lodges. Of all the people he worked with, he felt closest to the Achumawi, among whom he discovered "the spirit of wonder, the recognition of life as power..." "One of the most outstanding writers I have ever encountered." -- William Carlos Williams Jaime de Angulo (1887-1950) was a Paris-born Spanish novelist and linguist. His other works include Coyote Man and Old Doctor Loon, Coyote's Bones, and The Lariat: and Other Writings.