By zealous research, keen observation, and wide-ranging and deeply probing commentary, Mari Sandoz has become one of the most famous and well-respected interpreters of the American West. Old Jules Country is made up of the region that Sandoz has written about most frequently—the High Plains of the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska, and Wyoming—the Black Hills, the Bad Lands, the sandhills, and the great rivers: the Missouri, the Platte, and the Yellowstone. Here are selections from the six volumes of her acclaimed Great Plains Series The Beaver Men, Crazy Horse, Cheyenne Autumn, The Buffalo Hunters, The Cattlemen, and Old Jules and from her study of a great people, These Were the Sioux. Also included are two essays, "The Lost Sitting Bull" and "The Homestead in Perspective." A Cheyenne prayer and two sketches unavailable elsewhere—"Snakes" and "Coyotes and Eagles"—complete the collection.

This anthology provides a stimulating sampling for readers not yet acquainted with Sandoz's work. For her extensive following, it offers the opportunity for a satisfying reappraisal of her overall achievement.