Everyone knows the name Buffalo Bill, but few these days know what he did or, in some cases, didn't do. Was he a Pony Express rider? Did he serve Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn? Did he scalp countless Native Americans, or did he defend their rights? This, the first significant biography of Buffalo Bill Cody for younger readers in many years, explains it all. With copious archival illustrations and a handsome design, Presenting Buffalo Bill makes the great showman come alive for new generations. Extensive back matter, bibliography, and source notes complete the package. This title has Common Core connections.

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was the most famous American of his age. He claimed to have worked for the Pony Express when only a boy and to have scouted for General George Custer. But what was his real story? And how did a frontiersman become a worldwide celebrity? In this prize-winning biography, acclaimed author Louis S. Warren explains not only how Cody exaggerated his real experience as an army scout and buffalo hunter, but also how that experience inspired him to create the gigantic, traveling spectacle known as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. A dazzling mix of Indians, cowboys, and vaqueros, they performed on two continents for three decades, offering a surprisingly modern view of the United States and a remarkably democratic version of its history. This definitive biography reveals the genius of America’s greatest showman, and the startling history of the American West that drove him and his performers to the world stage.

Attempts to discern the truths behind the legends built up around his career.

The popular history of William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody remains more myth than anything else, yet it’s undeniable that he was a central figure in the American Old West. Pony Express rider, stagecoach driver, trapper, soldier, bison hunter, scout, showman—his résumé reads like the quintessential record of all that makes up the Old West mythology, and it’s all documented in this, his original 1879 autobiography. While The Life of Buffalo Bill is rife with the dramatic stylings of the dime novels and stage melodramas so popular at the time, in it Cody presents his version of his life: from his boyhood settling in the newly-opened Kansas territory, to his early life as a frontiersman. It was written when Cody was only thirty-three years old, just after he started his career as a showman and a few years before he created his world famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Originally titled The Life of Hon. William F. Cody Known as Buffalo Bill the Famous Hunter, Scout, and Guide: An Autobiography, it is an arguably more accurate account of both his life and the American West than the later 1917 autobiography The Great West That Was: “Buffalo Bill’s” Life Story which was ghostwritten by James Montague and published after his death. Although it makes many claims that are disputed today, The Life of Buffalo Bill reveals much about both the historical William F. Cody and the Buffalo Bill of American legend, and gives insight into the history of the American West. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

For more than thirty years, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody entertained audiences across the United States and Europe with his Wild West show. Scores of books have been written about Cody’s fabled career as a showman, but his involvement in the film industry—following the dissolution of his traveling show—is less well known. In Buffalo Bill on the Silver Screen, Sandra K. Sagala chronicles the fascinating story of Cody’s venture into filmmaking during the early cinema period. In 1894 Thomas Edison invited Cody to bring some of the Wild West performers to the inventor’s kinetoscope studio. From then on, as Sagala reveals, Cody was frequently in the camera’s eye, eager to participate in the newest and most popular phenomenon of the era: the motion picture. In 1910, promoter Pliny Craft produced The Life of Buffalo Bill, a film in which Cody played his own persona. After his Wild West show disbanded, Cody fully embraced the film business, seeing the technology as a way to recoup his financial losses and as a new vehicle for preserving America’s history and his own legacy for future generations. Because he had participated as a scout in some of the battles and skirmishes between the U.S. Army and Plains Indians, Cody wanted to make a film that captured these historical events. Unfortunately for Cody, The Indian Wars (1913) was not a financial success, and only three minutes of footage have survived. Long after his death, Cody’s legacy lives on through the many movies that have featured his character. Sagala provides a useful appendix listing all of these films, as well as those for which Cody himself took an active role as director, producer, or actor. Published on the eve of the centennial anniversary of The Indian Wars, this engaging book offers readers new insights into the legendary figure’s life and career and explores his lasting image in film.

Beautiful full color litho cover, stagecoach under attack from Indians, cameo portrait of W.F. Cody.