The Book of Jesse
There have been hundreds, if
not thousands of books written about Jesse James, from scholarly analysis to
dime novel and everything in between. Just put jesse james in the search box of amazon books and see what you get.
You can’t read them all. You
don’t want to. And if you buy a few at random because you are interested in the
subject, they may turn out to be partisan, inaccurate or, worst of all, badly
written.
So what to do?
Never fear, Jeff is here.
All you have to do is read the
following and you will be entertained and reliably informed.
Until 2002, the most
authoritative, not to say definitive work on Jesse James was Jesse James Was His Name; or, Fact and Fiction
concerning the Careers of the Notorious James Brothers of Missouri by William A Settle, published in 1977. This rather unwieldy title masked
an excellent, scholarly but readable study which, pretty well for the first
time gave us a balanced, researched picture of the Missouri bandit and his
times. The blurb says:
"Jesse James," said Carl
Sandburg, "is the only American bandit who is classical, who is to this
country what Robin Hood or Dick Turpin is to England, whose exploits are so
close to the mythical and apocryphal." For this definitive study no
significant source of information concerning Jesse James and his brother Frank has
been neglected, and from it emerges resolution of the debated point: "Were
the Jameses common criminals or gallant Robin Hoods?"
In case you are wondering, the
answer to the last question is both. They were common criminals but were made
into heroes. But then I guess we knew that.
This book is still a good read
today.
But TJ Stiles, who acknowledges
a great debt to it, in his own masterly exposition, says that scholarship has
moved on (it does, you know) and it was time for a revision. In 2002, Dr. Stiles (who went to college in Northfield, Minnesota) published
Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil
War (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2002). The book argues that Jesse James
was a kind of proto-terrorist with a political agenda as well as a common
criminal, and a self-publicist who presented himself as a fighter for the South
after the Civil War.
TJ Stiles
If you only read one book on Jesse James, make it this
one. It's superb.
If, on the other hand, you prefer a novelistic treatment,
there are very many but start with Ron Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the
Coward Robert Ford (1983).
This was the book that was so closely followed for the outstanding film of 2007. It is beautifully written, at once atmospheric, realistic and authentic
in tone and style. Hansen says that is sources were principally the Missouri
newspapers of the day and then The Man
Who Shot Jesse James by Carl W Breihan, The
Crittenden Memoirs by HH Crittenden, Jesse
James Was My Neighbor by Homer Croy and The
New Eldorado by Phyllis Flanders Dorset, as well as the Settle mentioned
above.
I first came across Professor Hansen’s books when I read Desperadoes (1979), his story of the
Daltons, and then I read Atticus and Jesse James (I think he was written
nine in all). Hansen is a ‘Catholic writer’ in the sense that he is a practicing
Roman Catholic and in his novels blends drama with themes of spirituality and
morality. But it’s the quality of the writing that I go for, and the gut-feeling
as you read that you are getting as near to historical truth as you are likely to.
I’ve changed my mind: if you only read one book on Jesse James, make it this one.
Ron Hansen
Now, if you are really serious about delving into the
facts of the matter, well, you’ll have to start with the bibliography in the
Stiles book: 16 pages of closely printed titles of primary and secondary
sources. That’ll take you a day or two.
But really, stick to the Stiles and Hansen and you won’t
go wrong.
We’ll finish our blogographical examination of Jesse
James in fact and fiction with a brief look at Jesse James in song and then we can
lay poor Jesse in his grave. I think we’ve rather done the subject to death,
dear readers, don’t you think? But I’ve enjoyed it anyway.