The Last Cattle Drive: 30th Anniversary Edition

First published in 1977, Robert Day's The Last Cattle Drive—an instant bestseller and Book-of-the-Month Club selection—is now a modern-day Western classic. This raucous, rollicking novel of a cattle drive in the age of the automobile revived a genre and added its own special twists in capturing the imagination of readers nationwide. To honor the thirtieth anniversary of its publication, the University Press of Kansas is proud to announce a new 30th anniversary edition of this much-loved work.

This edition includes these new features: a foreword by acclaimed Western historian Howard R. Lamar, reflecting on the novel's enduring popularity; an afterword by Robert Day recalling the experience of writing the novel and commenting on his own literary heroes (among them Mark Twain); "The Last Cattle Drive Stampede," Day's hilarious piece about failed attempts to make a movie of the book; and special endpaper maps of the cattle-drive route. Whether you're renewing your affection for an old favorite or coming to the work for the first time, this new edition will be a book to treasure and return to time and time again.

Robert Day professor of English and creative writing at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, has received MacDowell, Yaddo, and NEH fellowships in fiction writing and is also the author of two novellas, In My Stead and Four-Wheel Drive Quartet. He lives part time in Ludell, Kansas, and will be a visiting professor at the University of Kansas during fall 2006.