A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American West presents a series of essays that explore the historic and contemporary cultural expressions rooted in America's western states. Offers a comprehensive approach to the wide range of cultural expressions originating in the west Focuses on the intersections, complexities, and challenges found within and between the different historical and cultural groups that define the west's various distinctive regions Addresses traditionally familiar icons and ideas about the west (such as cowboys, wide-open spaces, and violence) and their intersections with urbanization and other regional complexities Features essays written by many of the leading scholars in western American cultural studies

Irving, the nephew of Washington Irving, travelled west with Henry Ellsworth to make treaties with the Pawnees in 1833, a trip which formed the basis for his best known work, INDIAN SKETCHES (1835), and this book which, because of its narrative format rather than its attention to detail, is labeled as fiction.