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Winston Bode : A Portrait of Pancho

The Pemberton Press, Austin,1965, 1965

8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. H3 - A first printing hardcover book SIGNED and inscribed by Winston Bode to preivous owner on the half-title page in very good condition in fair dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling, chipping, crease, small tears and open tears on the edges, corners and some sides, some scattered scratches, rubbing, and stains, tanning, and light shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, wrinkling on the spine edges, scattered stains on the page edges and mostly on the upper right side, light tanning and shelf wear. A Portrait of Pancho, The Life of a Great Texan: J. Frank Dobie. Combining biography, critique, and extraordinary photographic material, Winston Bode has caught in his A Portrait of Pancho the true spirit and life of Texas' greatest man of letters, J. Frank Dobie. With eloquence and sincerity he develops the character and importance of Dobie, and presents a full picture of life without the dryness of comprehensive biography of the narrow view of a personal memoir. 9.25"x6.25", 164 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. J. (James) Frank Dobie was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper columnist best known for his many books depicting the richness and traditions of life in rural Texas during the days of the open range. As a public figure, he was known in his lifetime for his outspoken liberal views against Texas state politics, and carried out a long, personal war against what he saw as braggart Texans, religious prejudice, restraints on individual liberty, and the mechanized world's assault on the human spirit. He was instrumental in saving the Texas Longhorn breed of cattle from extinction. Dobie began to publish his first articles in 1919; by 1920 he was writing articles mostly about Longhorn cattle and life in the southwest. That year, he left the University of Texas faculty to work on his uncle's ranch in La Salle County, north of Laredo, where he developed a desire to write about Texas ranch life and southwestern folklore. After a year on the ranch, Dobie returned to UT and began to use its library and the Texas Folklore Society's resources to write about the vanishing way of life on rural Texas ranches. In 1922, he became the Texas Folklore Society's secretary and began a program for publication, holding the post of secretary-editor for 21 years. In 1923, unable to get a promotion without a PhD, Dobie accepted a job at Oklahoma A&M College as chair of its English department. While in Oklahoma, he wrote for the Country Gentleman. He returned to Austin in 1925 after receiving a token promotion with help from friends. In 1929, Dobie published his first book, A Vaquero of the Brush Country, which helped establish him as an authentic voice of Texas and southwestern culture. While the title page said the book was "Partly from the Reminiscences of John Young", the author was given as J. Frank Dobie. The book was the result of a collaboration between Dobie and Young, a former open-range vaquero who had fought against the encroachment of barbed wire on southwest Texas's rangelands. Young had written Dobie for help in writing his autobiography, saying that he intended to use the profits from the book to build a hotel for cattlemen in San Antonio. Dobie agreed to help Young; he rearranged the raw material of Young's reminiscences and rewrote it in the prose of historical writing. Although Lawrence Clark Powell, an authority on western writing at the University of California, wrote in the preface to the 1957 edition, "it was unmistakably Dobie on every page, in every paragraph, sentence, and word", in 1994 Young's heirs filed a petition with the U.S. District Court For the Western District Of Texas asserting that Young and Dobie coauthored the book. The matter of A Vaquero of the Brush Country's authorship was ultimately resolved in this litigation between Young's descendants, Dobie's estate, and the University of Texas, holders of interests in the copyright. The court ruled that Young and Dobie are the joint authors of A Vaquero of the Brush Country. In 1931, Dobie published Coronado's Children, a collection of folklore about lost mines and lost treasures. This was followed by a series of books in the 1930s. In 1941 he published The Longhorns,[2][4] a commercial and critical success that got a full-page review in the New York Times. It is considered one of the best descriptions of the traditions of the Texas Longhorn cattle breed during the 19th century. In 1932, UT named Dobie the first full professor not to possess a Ph.D. In 1937, Dobie was visiting Thomas Calloway Lea, Jr., a friend and prominent attorney in El Paso. After seeing Lea's son Tom Lea's artwork, Dobie asked the younger man to illustrate the book he was working on, Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver. Tom Lea also illustrated The Longhorns, as well as a biography of Texas pioneer John C. Duval. Dobie and Lea remained good friends for the rest of Dobie's life. In 1939, Dobie began publishing a Sunday newspaper column in which he routinely poked fun at Texas politics. A liberal Democrat, he often found an easy target for his words in the antics of the state's politicians. Of state politics, he once wrote, "When I get ready to explain homemade fascism in America, I can take my example from the state capitol of Texas.". Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Hardcover. Jacket: Fair

First Printing
Signed by Author

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