Bill Nye’s Western Humor

Presents the cream of Nye’s funny creations from his seven Wyoming years, 1876-1883. The eighty-three short selections are from Laramie, Cheyenne, and Denver newspapers, and from six of Nye’s books, which were compiled from previous newspaper columns. The columns give insight to the color, politics, Indian questions, agriculture, and human nature of the times. –Arizona and the West. Takes an important place among the volumes of western humor now in print. –Western American Literature. Nye’s technique is precisely the same as Ring Lardner’s or Irving Cobb’s or today’s Art Buchwald’s–the clear brief statement of a situation in the opening paragraph and then the outrageous, dead-pan utterly unexpected process of poking wry fun at it…We could certainly use Bill Nye these days. –Marshall Sprague, Colorado Magazine. Nye’s clever use of words and tone will appeal to students who enjoy all sorts of humor and to those who wish to understand the flavor of a historical era through its writings. The editor’s helpful introduction and selective bibliography and the inclusion of original illustrations …Make this an attractive book, especially for students of western cultural history.
–Richard W. Etulain, Pacific Northwest Quarterly. T. A. Larson is head of the Department of History and director of the School of American Studies at the University of Wyoming. His History of Wyoming is also published by the University of Nebraska Press.