SOURCE: Morley, S. Griswold. “Cowboy and Gaucho Fiction.” In The Western: A Collection of Critical Essays, pp. 111-25. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979.

In the following essay, originally published in 1946, Morley compares the histories and traditions of American cowboy-oriented fiction versus that of Argentinian and Uruguayan gaucho narrative, while describing the traits of a classic gaucho novel.

The cowpuncher is not an exclusive product of the United States of America. Wherever cattle thrive on a large scale there must be men to manage them. Here, what with long grass country, short grass country, Rocky Mountain plateau, part of the deserts, and a slice of the Pacific Coast, there are some 800,000 square miles over which beef critters, as well as buffalo and antelope, have roamed.

Turn now to the south of us, to the Hispanic countries of the Western Hemisphere. Large scale cattle raising is conditioned necessarily by...