Calamity Before Jane

Calamity Jane and the stories surrounding her are famous, but this graphic novel for young readers 8 and up is here to tell the story of Martha Jane Canary—the real-life survivor, orphan, and storyteller behind the legend.

In 1901, the Pan-American Exposition World's Fair was held in Buffalo, New York. Amongst spectacles like advancements in electricity and new inventions like the X-ray machine is a woman with a story—but not the one you’ve heard. Calamity Jane’s life is shrouded in exaggerations and lies told to sell a more marketable version of reality, but cartoonist Noah Van Sciver is here to tell the truth: Martha Jane Cannary struggled throughout her life, from her childhood as a destitute orphan to her bitter adulthood as she watched the West she loved disappear before her eyes.