In 1908 John Neihardt (1881 1973) and two companions traveled the Missouri River about two thousand miles in a twenty-foot canoe. Originally published in Outing Magazine as a series of articles, The River and I describes their adventures on that wild waterway before it was dammed by the Army Corps of Engineers and points out storied sites along the shore. The result transcends journalism; Neihardt does for the Missouri what Twain did for the Mississippi. This Landmark edition makes available once more the book that was issued in 1910, two years before Neihardt began work on A...

In 1908 John Neihardt (1881-1973) and two companions traveled the Missouri River in a twenty-foot canoe, beginning at the headwaters in Montana and ending up at Sioux City, Iowa. The River and I describes their adventures on that wild waterway before it was dammed by the Army Corps of Engineers and points out storied sites along the shore. In sum, Neihardt does for the Missouri what Twain did for the Mississippi.

American poet and writer John G. Neihardt (1881-1973) possessed an inquiring and spiritual mind. Those qualities came to the fore in Black Elk Speaks, the story of the Lakota holy man Black Elk, for which he is best remembered. Over the course of thirty years he also wrote a five-volume epic poem, A Cycle of the West, which told the story of the settling of the American West.

Despite Neihardt's widespread name recognition, the success of Black Elk Speaks, and a list of critically acclaimed books and poems, Lonesome Dreamer is the first biography of...