MULE TRADER; RAY LUM'S TALES OF HORSES, MULES, AND MEN. [Reprint of "You Live and Learn, Then You Die and Forget It All."]

Ferris, William R. Eudora Welty, 1909-2001 (Foreword). [Ray Lum, 1891-1976.]

ISBN 10: 1578060869 / ISBN 13: 9781578060863

Published by Jackson, MS: Banner Books - University Press of Mississippi, 1998., 1998

About this Item

Reprint (first published 1992). xviii, 253 pages. Paperback: H 23.25cm x L 15cm. An as new copy which remains in the publisher's original shrink-wrap. {MS-Shelf#2} ISBN 1578060869.

Seller Inventory # Z626X-5910

Bibliographic Details

• Title: MULE TRADER; RAY LUM'S TALES OF HORSES, MULES, AND MEN. [Reprint of "You Live and Learn, Then You Die and Forget It All."]
• Publisher: Jackson, MS: Banner Books - University Press of Mississippi, 1998.
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1578060869
• ISBN 13: 9781578060863
• Binding: Soft cover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Americana-Mississippi

About this title

Synopsis

Readers captivated by this book will be happy that Bill Ferris found Ray Lum and that he thought to turn on a tape recorder. Lum (1891-1977) was a mule skinner, a livestock trader, an auctioneer, and an American original.

This delightful book, first published in 1992 as “You Live and Learn. Then You Die and Forget It All,” preserves Lum's colorful folk dialect and captures the essence of this one-of-a-kind figure who seems to have stepped full-blooded from the pages of Mark Twain. This riveting tale-spinner was tall, heavy-set, and full of body rhythm as he talked. In his special world, he was famous for trading, for tale-telling, and for common-sense lessons that had made him a savvy bargainer and a shrewd businessman. His home and his auction barn were in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where mules were his main interest, but in trading he fanned out over twenty states and even into Mexico. A west Texas newspaper reported his fame this way, “He is known all over cow country for his honest, fair dealing and gentlemanly attitude. . . . A letter addressed to him anywhere in Texas probably would be delivered.”

Over several years, Ferris recorded Lum's many long conversations that detail livestock auctioneering, cheery memories of rustic Deep South culture, and a philosophy of life that is grounded in good horse sense. Even among the most spellbinding talkers, Lum is a standout both for what he has to say and for the way he says it. Ferris's lucky, protracted encounters with him turn out to be the best of good fortune for everybody.

About the Authors

William R. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the senior associate director emeritus of its Center for the Study of the American South. The former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1997-2001), Ferris has written or edited ten books, created fifteen documentary films, and his most recent work Voices of Mississippi won two Grammy Awards for Best Liner Notes and for Best Historical Album in 2019.

Eudora Welty was author of many novels and story collections, including The Optimist’s Daughter (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), Losing Battles, The Ponder Heart, The Robber Bridegroom, and A Curtain of Green and Other Stories, as well as collections of her photographic work―Photographs, Country Churchyards, and One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression: A Snapshot Album, all published by University Press of Mississippi.