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.

Army scout, buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, and impresario of the world-renowned "Wild West Show," William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody lived the real American West and also helped create the "West of the imagination." Born in 1846, he took part in the great westward migration, hunted the buffalo, and made friends among the Plains Indians, who gave him the name Pahaska (long hair). But as the frontier closed and his role in "winning the West" passed into legend, Buffalo Bill found himself becoming the symbol of the destruction of the buffalo and the American Indian. Deeply dismayed, he spent the rest of his life working to save the remaining buffalo and to preserve Plains Indian culture through his Wild West shows. This biography of William Cody focuses on his lifelong relationship with Plains Indians, a vital part of his life story that, surprisingly, has been seldom told. Bobby Bridger draws on many historical accounts and Cody's own memoirs to show how deeply intertwined Cody's life was with the Plains Indians. In particular, he demonstrates that the Lakota and Cheyenne were active cocreators of the Wild West shows, which helped them preserve the spiritual essence of their culture in the reservation era while also imparting something of it to white society in America and Europe. This dual story of Buffalo Bill and the Plains Indians clearly reveals how one West was lost, and another born, within the lifetime of one remarkable man.

Army scout, frontiersman, and hero of the American West, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was also a shrewd self-promoter, showman, and entrepreneur. In 1888 he published The Story of the Wild West, a collection of biographies of four well-known American frontier figures: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and himself. Cody contributed an abridged version of his 1879 autobiography with an addendum titled The Wild West in England, now available in this stand-alone annotated edition, including all the illustrations from the original text along with photographs of Cody and promotional materials. Here Cody describes his Wild West exhibition, the show that offered audiences a mythic experience of the American frontier. Focusing on the show’s first season of performances in England, Cody includes excerpts of numerous laudatory descriptions of his show from the English press as well as stories of his time spent with British nobility—from private performances for Queen Victoria and the Prince and Princess of Wales to dinners and teas with the elite of London society. He depicts himself as an ambassador of American culture, proclaiming that he and his Wild West show prompted the British to “know more of the mighty nation beyond the Atlantic and . . . to esteem us better than at any time within the limits of modern history.”

This sweeping biography gives us a compelling look at the flamboyant, generous man the Indians called "Long Hair" and the rest of America called the "P. T. Barnum of the American West".

Buffalo Bill's Wild West presents a fascinating analysis of the first famous American to erase the boundary between real history and entertainment Canada, and Europe. Crowds cheered as cowboys and Indians--and Annie Oakley!--galloped past on spirited horses, sharpshooters exploded glass balls tossed high in the air, and cavalry troops arrived just in time to save a stagecoach from Indian attack. Vivid posters on billboards everywhere made William Cody, the show's originator and star, a world-renowned figure. Joy S. Kasson's important new book traces Cody's rise from scout to international celebrity, and shows how his image was shaped. Publicity stressed his show's "authenticity" yet audiences thrilled to its melodrama; fact and fiction converged in a performance that instantly became part of the American tradition. But how, precisely, did that come about? How, for example, did Cody use his audience's memories of the Civil War and the Indian wars? He boasted that his show included participants in the recent conflicts it presented theatrically, yet he also claimed it evoked "memories" of America's bygone greatness. Kasson's shrewd, engaging study--richly illustrated--in exploring the disappearing boundary between entertainment and public events in American culture, shows us just how we came to imagine our memories.

William "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a "boy extra," a bullwhacker, cattle driver, hunter, and an American Indian fighter on the Great Plains of the 1850s, all before becoming a teenager. He claimed to have killed nearly 5,000 buffalo to supply construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad and to have ridden for the Pony Express. Later, he transformed himself into a showman with the establishment of his Wild West arena extravaganza. Part circus, part rodeo, part history-the show played to enthusiastic crowds across the United States and Europe for three decades. For a time, Buffalo Bill Cody was possibly the most famous man in the world. Though Cody made huge sums with the Wild West show, he died a poor man in 1917. Legends of the Wild West brings to life the fascinating history, lore, and culture of the great American frontier from west of the Mississippi River to the wide expanses of the western prairies and deserts. Each volume is a compelling portrait of the best-known frontiersmen, women, and settlers of the West. Book jacket.