Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest Part 4

APPLEGATE, FRANK G. _Native Tales of New Mexico_, Philadelphia, 1932.

Delicious; the real thing. OP.

ATHERTON, GERTRUDE. _The Splendid Idle Forties_, New York, 1902. Romance of Mexican California.

AUSTIN, MARY. _One-Smoke Stories_, Boston, 1934. Short tales of Spanish-speaking New Mexicans, also of Indians.

BANDELIER, A. F. _The Gilded Man_, New York, 1873. The dream of El Dorado.

BARCA, MADAM CALDERON DE LA. _Life in Mexico_, 1843; reprinted by Dutton about 1930. Among books on Mexican life to be ranked first both in readability and revealing qualities.

BELL, HORACE. _On the Old West Coast_, New York, 1930. A golden treasury of anecdotes. OP.

BENTLEY, HAROLD W. _A Dictionary of Spanish Terms in English_, New York, 1932. In a special way this book reveals the Spanish-Mexican influence on life in the Southwest; it also guides to books in English that reflect this influence. OP.

BISHOP, MORRIS. _The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca_, New York, 1933. Better written than Cabeza de Vaca's own narrative. OP.

BLANCO, ANTONIO FIERRO DE. _The Journey of the Flame_, Boston, 1933.

Bully and flavorsome; the Californias. OP.

BOLTON, HERBERT E. _Spanish Exploration in the Southwest_, 1916. The cream of explorer narratives, well edited. _Coronado on the Turquoise Trail_ (originally published in New York, 1949, under the t.i.tle _Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains_; now issued by University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque). By his own work and by directing other scholars, Dr. Bolton has surpa.s.sed all other American historians of his time in output on Spanish-American history. _Coronado_ is the climax of his many volumes. Its fault is being too worshipful of everything Spanish and too uncritical. A little essay on Coronado in Haniel Long's _Pinon Country_ goes a good way to put this belegended figure into proper perspective.

BRENNER, ANITA. _Idols Behind Altars_, 1929. OP. The pagan worship that endures among Mexican Indians. _The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1942_, 1943, OP. _Your Mexican Holiday_, revised 1947. No writer on modern Mexico has a clearer eye or clearer intellect than Anita Brenner; she maintains good humor in her realism and never lapses into phony romance.

CABEZA DE VACA'S _Narrative_. Any translation procurable. One is included in _Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States_, edited by F. W. Hodge and T. H. Lewis, now published by Barnes & n.o.ble, New York.

The most dramatic and important aftermath of Cabeza de Vaca's twisted walk across the continent was Coronado's search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. Coronado's precursor was Fray Marcos de Niza. _The Journey of Fray Marcos de Niza_, by Cleve Hallenbeck, with ill.u.s.trations and decorations by Jose Cisneros, is one of the most beautiful books in format published in America. It was designed and printed by Carl Hertzog of El Paso, printer without peer between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and is issued by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas.

CASTANEDA'S narrative of Coronado's expedition. Winship's translation is preferred. It is included in _Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States_, cited above.

CATHER, WILLA. _Death Comes for the Archbishop_, Knopf, New York, 1927.

Cla.s.sical historical fiction on New Mexico.

c.u.mBERLAND, CHARLES C. _Mexican Revolution: Genesis under Madero_, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1952. Bibliography. To know Mexico and Mexicans without knowing anything about Mexican revolutions is like knowing the United States in ignorance of frontiers, const.i.tutions, and corporations. The Madero revolution that began in 1910 is still going on. Mr. c.u.mberland's solid book, independent in itself, is to be followed by two other volumes.

DE SOTO. Hernando de Soto made his expedition from Florida north and west at the time Coronado was exploring north and east. _The Florida of the Inca_, by Garcilaso de la Vega, translated by John and Jeannette Varner, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1951, is the first complete publishing in English of this absorbing narrative.

DIAZ, BERNAL. _History of the Conquest_. There are several translations.

A book of gusto and humanity as enduring as the results of the Conquest itself.

DOBIE, J. FRANK. _Coronado's Children_, 1930. Legendary tales of the Southwest, many of them derived from Mexican sources. _Tongues of the Monte_, 1935. A pattern of the soil of northern Mexico and its folk.

_Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver_, 1939. Lost mines and money in Mexico and New Mexico. Last two books published by Little, Brown, Boston.

DOMENECH, ABBE. _Missionary Adventures in Texas and Mexico_, London, 1858. Delightful folklore, though Domenech would not have so designated his accounts.

FERGUSSON, HARVEY. _Blood of the Conquerors_, 1921. Fiction. OP. _Rio Grande_, Knopf, New York, 1933. Best interpretations yet written of upper Mexican cla.s.s.

FLANDRAU, CHARLES M. _Viva Mexico!_ New York, 1909; reissued, 1951.

Delicious autobiographic narrative of life in Mexico.

FULTON, MAURICE G., and HORGAN, PAUL (editors). _New Mexico's Own Chronicle_, Dallas, 1937. OP. Selections from writers about the New Mexico scene.

GILPATRICK, WALLACE. _The Man Who Likes Mexico_, New York, 1911. OP.

Bully reading.

GONZALEZ, JOVITA. Tales about Texas-Mexican vaquero folk in _Texas and Southwestern Lore_, in _Man, Bird, and Beast_, and in _Mustangs and Cow Horses_, Publications VI, VIII, and XVI of Texas Folklore Society.

{ill.u.s.t. caption = Jose Cisneros: Fray Marcos, in _The Journey of Fray Marcos de Niza_ by Cleve Hallenbeck (1949)}

GRAHAM, R. B. CUNNINGHAME. _Hernando De Soto_, London, 1912. Biography.

OP.

HARTE, BRET. _The Bell Ringer of Angels_ and other legendary tales of California.

LAUGHLIN, RUTH. _Caballeros_. When the book was published in 1931, the author was named Ruth Laughlin Barker; after she discarded the Barker part, it was reissued, in 1946, by Caxton, Caldwell, Idaho. Delightful picturings of Mexican--or Spanish, as many New Mexicans prefer--life around Santa Fe.

LEA, TOM. _The Brave Bulls_. See under "Fiction."

LUMMIS, C. F. _Flowers of Our Lost Romance_, Boston, 1929. Humanistic essays on Spanish contributions to southwestern civilization. OP. _The Land of Poco Tiempo_, New York, 1913 (reissued by University of New Mexico Press, 1952), in an easier style. _A New Mexico David_, 1891, 1930. Folk tales and sketches. OP.

MERRIAM, CHARLES. _Machete_, Dallas, 1932. Plain and true to the _gente_. OP.

NIGGLI, JOSEPHINA. _Mexican Village_, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1945. A collection of skilfully told stories that reveal Mexican life.

O'SHAUGHNESSY, EDITH. _A Diplomat s Wife in Mexico_, New York, 1916; _Diplomatic Days_, 1917; _Intimate Pages of Mexican History_, 1920.

Books of pa.s.sion and power and high literary merit, interpretative of revolutionary Mexico. OP.

OTERO, NINA. _Old Spain in Our Southwest_, New York, 1936. Genuine. OP.

PORTER, KATHERINE ANNE. _Flowering Judas_. See under "Fiction."

PRESCOTT, WILLIAM H. _Conquest of Mexico_. History that is literature.

REMINGTON, FREDERIC W. _Pony Tracks_, New York, 1895. Includes sketches of Mexican ranch life.

ROSS, PATRICIA FENT. _Made in Mexico: The Story of a Country's Arts and Crafts_, Knopf, New York, 1952. Picturesquely and instructively ill.u.s.trated by Carlos Merida.

TANNENBAUM, FRANK. _Peace by Revolution_, Columbia University Press, New York, 1933; _Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread_, Knopf, New York, 1950. Tannenbaum dodges nothing, not even the church.

_Terry's Guide to Mexico_. It has everything.

Texas Folklore Society. Its publications are a storehouse of Mexican folklore in the Southwest and in Mexico also. Especially recommended are _Texas and Southwestern Lore_ (VI), _Man, Bird, and Beast_ (VIII), _Southwestern Lore_ (IX), _Spur-of-the-c.o.c.k_ (XI), _Puro Mexicano_ (XII), _Texian Stomping Grounds_ (XVII), _Mexican Border Ballads and Other Lore_ (XXI), _The Healer of Los Olmos and Other Mexican Lore_ (XXIV, 1951). All published by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas.

TOOR, FRANCES. A _Treasury of Mexican Folkways_, Crown, New York, 1947.

An anthology of life.

TURNER, TIMOTHY G._ Bullets, Bottles and Gardenias_, Dallas, 1935.