SOURCE: Current-Garcia, Eugene. “Thomas Bangs Thorpe and the Literature of the Ante-Bellum Southwestern Frontier.” Louisiana Historical Quarterly 39, no. 2 (April 1956): 199-222.

In the following essay, Current-Garcia views Thomas Bangs Thorpe as a seminal contributor to the tradition of Southwestern humor literature and chronicles his career as an editor.

In January, 1845, the firm of Carey & Hart of Philadelphia published a small volume of sketches entitled The Mysteries of the Backwoods.¹ Dedicating his work to the American sculptor Hiram Powers, the author stated his purpose in a modest preface, which began as follows:

The Southwest, with its vast primitive forests, its beautiful prairies and its magnificent rivers, presents exhibitions of nature before which the pilgrim from every land bows with wonder and awe. The author of this little volume has felt an inspiration among them, which was never called forth by the more merely beautiful and familiar scenery of the North...