Phyllis S. Morgan

Travelers and traders taking the Santa Fe Trail's routes from Missouri to New Mexico wrote vivid eyewitness accounts of the diverse and abundant wildlife encountered as they crossed arid plains, high desert, and rugged mountains. Most astonishing to these observers were the incredible numbers of animals, many they had not seen before - buffalo, antelope (pronghorn), prairie dogs, roadrunners, mustangs, grizzlies, and others. They also wrote about the domesticated animals they brought with them, including oxen, mules, horses, and dogs. Their letters, diaries, and memoirs open a window onto an animal world on the plains seen by few people other than the Plains Indians who had lived there for thousands of years. Phyllis S. Morgan has gleaned accounts from numerous primary sources and assembled them into a delightfully informative narrative. She has also explored the lives of the various species, and in this book tells about their behaviors and characteristics, the social relations within and between species, their relationships with humans, and their contributions to the environment and humankind. With skillful prose and a keen eye for a priceless tale, Morgan reanimates the story of life on the Santa Fe Trail's well-worn routes, and its sometimes violent intersection with human life. She provides a stirring view of the land and of the animals visible ""as far as the eye could reach,"" as more than one memoirist described. She also champions the many contributions animals made to the Trail's success and to the opening of the American West.

N. Scott Momaday, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of House Made of Dawn (1969) and National Medal of Arts awardee, is the elder statesman of Native American literature and a major twentieth-century American author. This volume marks the most comprehensive resource available on Momaday. Along with an insightful new biography, it offers extensive, up-to-date bibliographies of his own work and the work of others about him.Phyllis Morgan's account of Momaday's life and career and her chronology of his accomplishments, including his many awards and honors, are based on wide-ranging research and recent interviews in which she elicited Momaday's thoughts on topics and periods of his life that he has not previously touched on. The biography captures his formative years, expands on his academic career, and reflects a deep understanding of his work.The comprehensive annotated bibliography of Momaday's published work catalogs his output through mid-2009, including books, stories, essays, poems, newspaper columns, forewords and introductions, play scripts, and interviews. Morgan has also compiled an extensive listing of works about Momaday and his multifaceted output, including books, critical essays, reviews, newspaper articles, reference sources, online resources, and dissertations and theses. In the introduction, literary scholar Kenneth Lincoln offers additional insight into Momaday's poetry and prose.With Momaday having observed his 75th birthday in 2009, this book showcases his accomplishments as it captures his dedication to family and ancestors, to the sacredness of Earth, and to the traditions of Native and indigenous peoples. It is an indispensable and foundational research tool and a worthy tribute to a literary icon.

New Mexico's best known and most distinguished historian, Marc Simmons, is also fully deserving of the epithet maverick, a term that originally referred to a calf that had strayed from the herd and that is also used to describe a person who takes an independent path in his life, work, and philosophy. An independent scholar who has published at least 42 books, as well as over 1,400 magazine and newspaper articles, over 50 scholarly articles, and 74 chapters or introductions in books by other authors, Simmons is equally remarkable for his lifestyle. He lives in a house he himself built, writing all his books on a manual typewriter because he has forsworn electricity and other modern conveniences. Simmons is internationally recognized as an authority on Spanish Colonial New Mexico, the Santa Fe Trail, the life and times of Kit Carson, and the Spanish documentary records that are the source for so many of his writings. He is known for his determination to write narrative history for general readers rather than speaking strictly to a scholarly audience.Phyllis Morgan presents a biographical essay, a sampling of his writings, and a comprehensive bibliography that traces Simmons's work into 2004. Her work will be essential for all collections and collectors specializing in Marc Simmons or the Southwest.