The Song of Hugh Glass

The wonderfully realized poem that launched the epic A Cycle of the West, The Song of Hugh Glass celebrates the American fur trade west of the Mississippi in the early nineteenth century. The lives and adventures of the early fur traders and trappers who crossed the Missouri River are told with unforgettable vigor and magnificence by the brilliant epic poet John G. Neihardt. As he tells it, this was an age of individualism in our national historical epic, a time of the struggles and triumphs of solitary men more than communities. Although a satisfying tale in its own right, The Song of Hugh Glass is also one of the cornerstones of Neihardt's masterpiece, A Cycle of the West, now available in two affordable volumes from Excelsior Editions.