Cavorting on the Devil's Fork : The Pete Whetstone Letters of C. F. M. Noland Paperback / softback

By the 1840s, American literature tradition had become fascinated with the frontier.

The rural folk humor of the ""Devil's Fork"" letters that a young Charles Fenton Mercer Noland (1810-1858) of central Arkansas began writing in 1837 was something the country wanted.

His pieces were published regularly in New York's ""Spirit of the Times"", and he quickly achieved a reputation as one of the southwest's best humorists.

His tall tales told in dialect reflected the peculiar characteristics of the people of a backwoods region.

Noland's semiautobiographical ""Letters"" were built around the experiences of Pete Whetstone, who, along with his neighbors, devoted himself to hunting, fishing, and an outdoors lifestyle.

Through his first-person narration readers were able to experience an ideal southwest frontier existence.

Here was a land of natural beauty, with clear rivers, forested mountains, and abundant game, a place where a person could live a free and rustic lifestyle.

Here too were horse races and bear fights, politics and balls.

Unfortunately for Noland, an early death cut short a promising career.

Had he lived longer and written more, he could have become one of America's great nineteenth-century humorists.

Midcentury America was certainly looking for one.