The Encyclopedia of Frontier Literature surveys 400 years of North American frontier literature. Within this literary context, the roles of women and minorities are given special attention, as is the expansion of the American West. The sheer scope of frontier literature is striking; this genre belongs as much to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Fenimore Cooper as it does to Willa Cather and Jessamyn West. From novels, short stories, and poetry to theater, oratory, outdoor dramas, songs, biographies, diaries, journals, and logbooks, frontier literature is characterized and unified by its rich expression of human experience. In the 94 alphabetized entries in this volume, readers will find dozens of authors and hundreds of works represented, as well as biographies, key concepts, terms, geographic locations, literary motifs, and dominant themes, including Explorers of the Frontier, Law and Order, Native Americans in Literature, Naturalists, and Poetry of the Frontier.