by J. B. Jones
Produced by Curtis Weyant, the Online Distributed Proofreading Teamand The Making of America Project
"I saw him gasp, reel, and fall."]
Wild Western Scenes]
WILD WESTERN SCENES:
A NARRATIVEOFADVENTURES IN THE WESTERN WILDERNESS,
WHEREIN
THE EXPLOITS OF DANIEL BOONE, THE GREAT AMERICAN PIONEER AREPARTICULARLY DESCRIBED
ALSO,
ACCOUNTS OF BEAR, DEER, AND BUFFALO HUNTS--DESPERATE CONFLICTS WITHTHE SAVAGES--WOLF HUNTS--FISHING AND FOWLING ADVENTURES--ENCOUNTERSWITH SERPENTS, ETC.
New Stereotype Edition, Altered, Revised, and Corrected
By J.B. JONES.
Author of "The War Path," "Adventures of a Country Merchant," etc.
Illustrated with Sixteen Engravings from Original Designs
Philadelphia:J.B. Lippincott & Co.
1875
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by J.B. Jones,in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern Districtof Pennsylvania.
Stereotyped By L. Johnson & Co.,Philadelphia.
PREFACE.
When a work of fiction has reached its fortieth edition, one wouldsuppose the author might congratulate himself upon having contributedsomething of an imperishable character to the literature of thecountry. But no such pretensions are asserted for this production, nowin its fortieth thousand. Being the first essay of an impetuous youthin a field where giants even have not always successfully contended,it would be a rash assumption to suppose it could receive from thosewho confer such honors any high award of merit. It has been before thepublic some fifteen years, and has never been reviewed. Perhaps theforbearance of those who wield the cerebral scalpels may not befurther prolonged, and the book remains amenable to the judgment theymay be pleased to pronounce.
To that portion of the public who have read with approbation so manythousands of his book, the author may speak with greater confidence.To this class of his friends he may make disclosures and confessionspertaining to the secret history of the "Wild Western Scenes," withoutthe hazard of incurring their displeasure.
Like the hero of his book, the author had his vicissitudes in boyhood,and committed such indiscretions as were incident to one of his yearsand circumstances, but nevertheless only such as might be readilypardoned by the charitable. Like Glenn, he submitted to a voluntaryexile in the wilds of Missouri. Hence the description of scenery is atrue picture, and several characters in the scenes were real persons.Many of the occurrences actually transpired in his presence, or hadbeen enacted in the vicinity at no remote period; and the dream of thehero--his visit to the haunted island--was truly a dream of theauthor's.
But the worst miseries of the author were felt when his work wascompleted; he could get no publisher to examine it. He then purchasedan interest in a weekly newspaper, in the columns of which it appearedin consecutive chapters. The subscribers were pleased with it, anddesired to possess it in a volume; but still no publisher wouldundertake it,--the author had no reputation in the literary world. Heoffered it for fifty dollars, but could find no purchaser at anyprice. Believing the British booksellers more accommodating, a friendwas employed to make a fair copy in manuscript, at a certain number ofcents per hundred words. The work was sent to a British publisher,with whom it remained many months, but was returned, accompanied by anote declining to treat for it.
Undeterred by the rebuffs of two worlds, the author had his cherishedproduction published on his own account, and was remunerated by thesale of the whole edition. After the tardy sale of several subsequenteditions by houses of limited influence, the book had the goodfortune, finally, to fall into the hands of the gigantic establishmentwhose imprint is now upon its title-page. And now, the author isinformed, it is regularly and liberally ordered by the Londonbooksellers, and is sold with an increasing rapidity in almost everysection of the Union.
Such are the hazards, the miseries, and sometimes the rewards, ofauthorship.
J.B.J.
Burlington, N.J.,_March_, 1856.
