Bestselling winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize, Lonesome Dove is an American classic. First published in 1985, Larry McMurtry's epic novel combined flawless writing with a storyline and setting that gripped the popular imagination, and ultimately resulted in a series of four novels and an Emmy-winning television miniseries. Now, with an introduction by the author, Lonesome Dove is reprinted in an S&S Classic Edition. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, the author of Terms of Endearment, is his long-awaited masterpiece, the major novel at last of the American West as it really was. A love story, an adventure, an American epic, Lonesome Dove embraces all the West -- legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settiers -- in a novel that recreates the central American experience, the most enduring of our national myths. Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana -- and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream -- the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners and friends who have shared hardship and danger together without ever quite understanding (or wanting to understand) each other's deepest emotions. Gus is the romantic, a reluctant rancher who has a way with women and the sense to leave well enough alone. Call is a driven, demanding man, a natural authority figure with no patience for weaknesses, and not many of his own. He is obsessed with the dream of creating his own empire, and with the need to conceal a secret sorrow of his own. The two men could hardly be more different, but both are tough, redoubtable fighters who have learned to count on each other, if nothing else. Call's dream not only drags Gus along in its wake, but draws in a vast cast of characters: -- Lorena, the whore with the proverbial heart of gold, whom Gus (and almost everyone else) loves, and who survives one of the most terrifying experiences any woman could have... -- Elmira, the restless, reluctant wife of a small-time Arkansas sheriff, who runs away from the security of marriage to become part of the great Western adventure... -- Blue Duck, the sinister Indian renegade, one of the most frightening villains in American fiction, whose steely capacity for cruelty affects the lives of everyone in the book... -- Newt, the young cowboy for whom the long and dangerous journey from Texas to Montana is in fact a search for his own identity... -- Jake, the dashing, womanizing exRanger, a comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, whose weakness leads him to an unexpected fate... -- July Johnson, husband of Elmira, whose love for her draws him out of his secure life into the wilderness, and turns him into a kind of hero... Lonesome Dove sweeps from the Rio Grande (where Gus and Call acquire the cattle for their long drive by raiding the Mexicans) to the Montana highlands (where they find themselves besieged by the last, defiant remnants of an older West). It is an epic of love, heroism, loyalty, honor, and betrayal -- faultlessly written, unfailingly dramatic. Lonesome Dove is the novel about the West that American literature -- and the American reader -- has long been waiting for.

Set against the bitter frontier strife between Texans and the Comanche, Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call battle Buffalo Hump, the enigmatic war chief, and Gus' long-time nemesis, Blue Duck.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author Larry McMurtry comes the final book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy—an exhilarating tale of legend and heroism, Streets of Laredo is classic Texas and Western literature at its finest. Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena—once Gus McCrae's sweetheart. This long chase leads them across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

From the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning "absolute master of 'Western' prose," comes McMurtry's electrifying take on the classic tale of Billy the Kid, the teenage outlaw of the American Old West. The first time I saw Billy, he came walking out of a cloud... Welcome to the wild, hot-blooded adventures of Billy the Kid, the American West's most legendary outlaw. Larry McMurtry takes us on a hell-for-leather journey with Billy and his friends as they ride, drink, love, fight, shoot, and escape their way into the shining memories of Western myth. Surrounded by a splendid cast of characters that only Larry McMurtry could create, Billy charges headlong toward his fate, to become in death the unforgettable desperado he aspires to be in life. Not since Lonesome Dove has there been such a rich, exciting novel about the cowboys, Indians, and gunmen who live at the blazing heart of the American dream.

The timeless, bestselling four-part epic that began with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove takes readers into the lives of Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, two tough-as-nails Texas Rangers in the heyday of the Old West. Dead Man’s Walk As young Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call—"Gus" and "Call" for short—have much to learn about survival in a land fraught with perils: not only the blazing heat and raging tornadoes, roiling rivers and merciless Indians, but also the deadly whims of soldiers. On their first expeditions—led by incompetent officers and accompanied by the robust, dauntless whore known as the Great Western—they will face death at the hands of the cunning Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump and the silent Apache Gomez. They will be astonished by the Mexican army. And Gus will meet the love of his life. Comanche Moon Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow Call, now in their middle years, are still figuring out how to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life—Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him—when they sign up to pursue the Comanche horse thief Kicking Wolf into Mexico. On this mission, their captain, Inish Scull, is captured by the brutally cruel Mexican bandit Ahumado, and Gus and Call must come to the rescue, with the aid of new friends including Joshua Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker, as well as the renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes. Lonesome Dove Gus and Call, now retired from the Texas Rangers and settled in the border town of Lonesome Dove running the Hat Creek Cattle Company, are visited by their old friend Jake Spoon, who convinces Gus and Call to gather a herd of cattle and drive them north to Montana in order to start a cattle ranch in untouched territory. Gus is further motivated by a desire to see the love of his life, Clara Allen (previously Clara Forsythe), who now lives with her children and comatose horse-trader husband in Ogallala, Nebraska. On the way to Montana they travel through wild country full of thieves, murderers, and a lifetime's worth of unforgettable adventure. Streets of Laredo Woodrow Call is back in Texas, a Ranger once again and a general gun-for-hire, but increasingly a relic as the westward sprawl of the railroads rapidly settles the once lawless frontier. Hired by a railroad tycoon to hunt down a dangerous bandit named Joey Garza, Call sets out once again with a hapless Yankee named Ned Brookshire who works for the railroad company that hired Call. Call's old friend Pea Eye Parker—who initially refused to join the expedition because of his family—sets off with the Kickapoo tracker Famous Shoes to try to catch up with Call, until he runs into troubles of his own. The long pursuit of Garza leads them all across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

A photo-filled behind-the-scenes journey into the creation of the book, the miniseries, and the world of Lonesome Dove. Widely acclaimed as the greatest Western ever made, Lonesome Dove has become a true American epic. Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel was a New York Times bestseller, with millions of copies in print, and the miniseries has won seven Emmys. In this treasury, John Spong talks to forty of the key people involved, including author Larry McMurtry; actors Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston, Diane Lane, Danny Glover, Ricky Schroder, D. B. Sweeney, Frederic Forrest, and Chris Cooper; executive producer and screenwriter Bill Wittliff; executive producer Suzanne de Passe; and director Simon Wincer. They and a host of others tell lively stories about McMurtry’s writing of the epic novel and the process of turning it into the miniseries Lonesome Dove. Accompanying their recollections are photographs of iconic props, costumes, set designs, and shooting scripts. Rounding out the book are continuity Polaroids used during filming and photographs taken on the set by Bill Wittliff, which place you behind the scenes in the middle of the action. Designed as a companion for A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove, Wittliff’s magnificent fine art volume, A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove is a must-have for every fan.

A special edition to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Lonesome Dove miniseries