A friend send me her local library's list of recommended readings recently and I was intrigued by several of them, not least Larry McMurtry's The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America...even though I really, really meant to stop reading about the wild, wild west after my adventures with Billy the Kid, the railways, Wyatt Earp, and most recently, Lewis & Clark (and company).
In fairness (to me), The Colonel and Little Missie was much more about the west than I expected - the shows that made Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley famous take second billing to the places and adventures that made them. In some ways, this was disappointing, as I found the most interesting parts of the book were those that dealt with the mounting of Buffalo Bill's Wild West - the 80+ car train, the hundreds of performers borne across the ocean and through Europe, the show that stole a bit of thunder from Chicago's World Fair.
A far greater amount of ink is devoted to "the colonel" than is devoted to "little missie," but in fairness (to McMurtry), Annie Oakley seems to have done her best to live as quiet a life as possible for a mega-star, and despite her skill with a gun, McMurtry clearly had less to work with as pertains to Phoebe Ann Moses Butler. As an aside: is it any wonder she adopted a stage name?
The Colonel and Little Missie is a very quick read, enriched by the many photographs McMurtry has included. I enjoyed it, event if I really am done reading how the west was won. I think.
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