The Way West (Pulitzer Prize 1950)

417 pp. Brown full leather, gilt titles and decorations, all edges gilt, silk moire endpapers, ribbon marker bound in. Two-panel illustration preceding title page and full-page illustrations in text by Tony Eubanks. The sequel to The Big Sky, The Way West is the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the American West by A. B. Guthrie, the Academy Award–nominated screenwriter of Shane. This enormously entertaining classic brings to life the adventure of the western passage and the pioneer spirit, charting a frontiersman's return to the untamed West in 1846. Dick Summers, as pilot of a wagon train, guides a group of settlers on the difficult journey from Missouri to Oregon. In sensitive but unsentimental prose, Guthrie illuminates the harsh trials and resounding triumphs of pioneer life. A celebrated novel, The Way West pays homage to the grandeur of the western wilderness, its stark and beautiful scenery, and its extraordinary people. "Alfred Bertram Guthrie, Jr. (January 13, 1901 – April 26, 1991) was an American novelist, historian, and literary historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1950 for his The Way West. The author called himself "Bud" because he felt that Alfred Bertram "was a sissy name.""