Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

Frontier Living

November 20, 2020, by JimC

The other day, I stumbled across a post on Facebook that sent me right back to my youth, sitting on the edge of my bed in a tiny bedroom in La Crescenta, California, completely absorbed in the words and pictures of Edwin Tunis.

For several years running when I was probably 10-12 years old, I got for my birthday or Christmas a volume of Tunis’s work. The author and illustrator delved deep into early American material culture — and I still remember the evocative pen-and-ink drawings that filled his books Frontier Living; Colonial Living; and Indians.

I wonder what ever became of those books…

 

Filed Under: Frontier Partisan Bookshelf

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Comments

  1. Padre says

    November 20, 2020 at 9:22 pm

    Now I’ve gotten pulled into a flashback to checking those books out of the public library when I was a kid. (I thought of the smell of the library books almost immediately.) I loved those and the books of C. Keith Wilbur.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      November 21, 2020 at 7:02 am

      Yes — it’s a physical sensation, ain’t it. Cool.

      Reply
  2. John M Roberts says

    November 21, 2020 at 10:46 am

    My favorite Tunis book was WEAPONS. I think the librarians in the various towns I grew up in got tired of me checking that one out all the time.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      November 21, 2020 at 11:44 am

      The beginnings of your expertise. I don’t think I ever saw that one. I must say, though, i am sorely tempted to track down several of those volumes and return them to my library after 40+ years.

      Reply
  3. Melodious Thunk says

    November 21, 2020 at 11:51 am

    Powell’s Books is now selling a perfume that smells like old books.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      November 21, 2020 at 12:00 pm

      I saw a post on that. There are all kinds of ruin-your-life-noir possibilities with this…

      “The dame stalked through my door like a hunting tigress, trailing an intoxicating scent of old books.”

      Reply
      • Melodious Thunk says

        November 21, 2020 at 12:45 pm

        Find Richie Fahey’s Librarian (Quiet Please).

        Reply

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