SOURCE: Shackford, James A., and Stanley J. Folmsbee. Introduction to The Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee, by David Crockett, pp. ix-xx. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973.

In the following essay, Shackford and Folmsbee trace the growth of the Davy Crockett legend, contending that behind the myth lies “an authentic folk hero.”

A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett is an important document in three major areas of American culture. As a literary work, it is one of the earliest autobiographies to be published, only a decade and a half after the virtually complete version of the first of all, Benjamin Franklin's. Another American success story, it belongs in the long series of autobiographies telling similar stories, from Franklin to Malcolm X. It is also a very early extended example of American humor, the first of the Southwest variety, appearing just...