Audiobook · read by volunteers
Cattle Brands
Andy Adams (1859–1935)
Read by Nathalie J. · 14 chapters · 6 h 42
About the book
Cowboys, cattle drives and the open range: Andy Adams knew the cowboy's life at first hand, and the fourteen stories collected in Cattle Brands bring it to vivid life. Here are herds moving north, skirmishes with bandits, thrilling shoot-outs and the recapture of a stolen herd, all told with plenty of dry humour. The stories have titles such as Drifting North and Bad Medicine, and each one gives a different glimpse of work and danger on the trail. Adams writes in a plain, unhurried voice that matches the pace of the cattle. Read by one LibriVox volunteer, the fourteen parts last about six and three-quarter hours, a fine pick for anyone who enjoys westerns told by someone who clearly knew the life.
Introduction
Andy Adams, who lived from 1859 to 1935, was an American author who wrote about the cattle trade of the late nineteenth century. He had worked as a cowboy and cattle driver himself, and his books are valued for the authority of their detail. His best-known novel is The Log of a Cowboy, and Cattle Brands, published in 1906, is a collection of shorter tales that drew on the same experience.
The book contains fourteen short stories. They depict the life of cowboys in the wild West, but also the dangerous skirmishes with bandits, the shoot-outs, and the attempts at and the recapture of stolen cattle. Their titles, such as Drifting North, Seigerman’s Per Cent and Bad Medicine, give a sense of their variety. Some are comic, some tense, and all of them rest on a feeling for the practical work of the range.
Adams writes in a restrained manner that avoids the melodrama common in many western stories. His interest lies in the rhythms of work, the friendships between men and the bargains and tricks of the cattle trade. As a book of its time, it reflects the attitudes of its period, including in its portrayal of some of the people the cowboys meet, and a modern reader should listen with that in mind.
The recording has fourteen parts, one for each story, read by a single LibriVox volunteer, and lasts about six hours and forty-five minutes. Today it is worth hearing as an authentic-sounding portrait of cattle country, told by someone who had lived it.
Public domain
Andy Adams died in 1935: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive