Ralph Moody – författare

A most appealing book . . . Its genuineness and its simplicity will build up a large audience of enthusiastic readers.-San Francisco ChronicleRalph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes we experience the pleasures and perils of ranching there early in the twentieth century. Auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes and wind storms give authentic color to Little Britches. So do adventures, wonderfully told, that equip Ralph to take his father's place when it becomes necessary. Little Britches was the literary debut of Ralph Moody, who wrote about the adventures of his family in eight glorious books, all available as Bison Books.

"A lively story . . . warm with humor; bright with incident and personality."-San Francisco ChronicleThe fatherless Moody family moved from Colorado to Medford, Massachusetts, in 1912, when Ralph was entering his teens. "I tried as hard as I could to be a city boy, but I didn't have very good luck," he says at the beginning of The Fields of Home. "Just little things that would have been all right in Colorado were always getting me in trouble." So he is sent to his grandfather's farm in Maine, where he finds a new set of adventures.

Fortified with Yankee ingenuity and western can-do energy, the Moody family, transplanted from New England, builds a new life on a Colorado ranch early in the twentieth century. Father has died and Little Britches shoulders the responsibilities of a man at age eleven. Man of the Family continues true pioneering adventures as unforgettable as those in Little Britches and The Fields of Home, also available as Bison Books.

Little Britches becomes the "man" in his family after his father's early death, taking on the concomitant responsibilities as well as opportunities. During the summer of his twelfth year he works on a cattle ranch in the shadow of Pike's Peak, earning a dollar a day. Little Britches is tested against seasoned cowboys on the range and in the corral. He drives cattle through a dust storm, eats his weight in flapjacks, and falls in love with a blue outlaw horse. Following Little Britches and developing an episode noted near the end of Man of the Family, The Home Ranch continues the adventures of young Ralph Moody. Soon after returning from the ranch, he and his mother and siblings will go east for a new start, described in Mary Emma & Company and The Fields of Home. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books.

The protagonist, Mary Emma Moody, widowed mother of six, has taken her family east in 1912 to begin a new life. Her son, Ralph, then thirteen, recalls how the Moodys survive that first bleak winter in a Massachusetts town. Money and prospects are lacking, but not so faith and resourcefulness. "Mother" in Little Britches and Man of the Family, Mary Emma emerges fully as a character in this book, and Ralph, no longer called "Little Britches," comes into his own. The family’s run-ins with authority and with broken furnaces in winter are evocative of a full and warm family life. Mary Emma & Company continues the Moody saga that started in Colorado with Little Britches and runs through Man of the Family and The Home Ranch. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books, as has The Fields of Home, in which Ralph leaves the Massachusetts town for his grandfather's farm in Maine.

Ralph Moody, just turned twenty, had only a dime in his pocket when he was put off a freight in western Nebraska. It was the Fourth of July in 1919. Three months later he owned eight teams of horses and rigs to go with them. Everyone who worked with him shared in the prosperity-the widow whose wheat crop was saved and the group of misfits who formed a first-rate harvesting crew. But sometimes fickle Mother Nature and frail human nature made sure that nothing was easy. The tension between opposing forces never lets up in this book. Without preaching, The Dry Divide warmly illustrates the old-time virtues of hard work, ingenuity, and respect for others. The Ralph Moody who was a youngster in Little Britches and who grew up without a father and with early responsibilities in Man of the Family, The Fields of Home, The Home Ranch, Mary Emma & Company, and Shaking the Nickel Bush (all Bison Books) has become a man to reckon with in The Dry Divide.

"Ralph Moody's story is a perfect example of rural American enterprise in the early 1920s...this book is a glorious recollection of Pre-Dust Bowl, pre-Depression days and is highly recommended."―Library JournalHorse of a Different Color ends the "roving days" of young Ralph Moody. His saga began on a Colorado ranch in Little Britches and continued at points east and west in Man of the Family, The Fields of Home, The Home Ranch, Mary Emma & Company, Shaking the Nickel Bush, and The Dry Divide. All have been reprinted as Bison Books.

Skinny and suffering from diabetes, Ralph Moody is ordered by a Boston doctor to seek a more healthful climate. Going west again is a delightful prospect. His childhood adventures on a Colorado ranch were described in Little Britches and Man of the Family, also Bison Books.Now nineteen years old, he strikes out into new territory hustling odd jobs, facing the problem of getting fresh milk and leafy green vegetables. He scrapes around to survive, risking his neck as a stunt rider for a movie company. With an improvident buddy named Lonnie, he camps out in an Arizona canyon and "shakes the nickel bush" by sculpting plaster of paris busts of lawyers and bankers. This is 1918, and the young men travel through the Southwest not on horses but in a Ford aptly named Shiftless. New readers and old will enjoy this entry in the continuing saga of Ralph Moody.

Stagecoach West is a comprehensive history of stagecoaching west of the Missouri. Starting with the evolution of overland passenger transportation, Moody moves on to paint a lively and informative picture of western stagecoaching, from its early short runs through its rise with the gold rush, its zenith of 1858–68, and beyond. Its story is one of grand rivalries, political chicanery, and gaudy publicity stunts, traders, fortune hunters, outlaws, courageous drivers, and indefatigable detectives. We meet colorful characters such as Charlie Parkhurst, a stagecoach driver who took an amazing secret to his death: "he" was actually a woman. Using contemporary accounts, illustrations, maps, and photographs to flesh out his narrative, Moody creates one of the most important accounts of transportation history to date.

Master storyteller Ralph Moody tells the thrilling story of a plucky horse who refused to quit, a down-on-his-luck jockey who didn’t let horrendous accidents keep him out of the saddle, and a taciturn trainer who brought out the best in both. During the Great Depression, Seabiscuit captured the hearts of Americans from the streets to the White House, winning more money than any horse at that time and shattering speed records across the country. In this real-life story Moody captures the hoof-pounding excitement of the explosive early races to an unforgettable showdown with the feared Triple Crown winner War Admiral. Moving and inspirational, Come on Seabiscuit! is a reminder of the qualities that make a real American champion.   Ralph Moody is best known for his eight Little Britches books, which have delighted generations of readers and are all available in Bison Books editions.   Ralph Moody captured the hearts of young readers everywhere with his beloved Little Britches saga. In this Bison Books edition of his 1963 classic, Moody brings to life the story of a knobby-kneed little colt called Seabiscuit, who against all odds became one of the most celebrated racehorses of all time.   Although Seabiscuit was the grandson of the legendary Man O' War, he was neither handsome nor graceful. His head was too big, his legs too short, and his gallop was awkward. His owners gave up on Seabiscuit when he was two, raced him too heavily, and tried unsuccessfully to sell him. It took the keen eyes of trainer Tom Smith to recognize the heart, courage, and gallant determination of Seabiscuit, the qualities of a truly great horse. Smith's unfailing patience and astute treatments, the love and skill of jockey Red Pollard, and the continued support of owner Charles Howard forged Seabiscuit into a champion.

Horses came to America from Spain, England, the Low Countries, and Arabia. Here they interbred and flourished as never before. "Out of the melting pot have come four entirely new breeds that rank among the finest horses of the world. Three of them originated through the painstaking and intelligent efforts of American horsemen, one through a freak of nature." That "freak" was a little bay stallion born when George Washington was president. This chunky, short-legged horse proved to be not only hardy and gentle but also able to outpull and outrun any other horse in New England or New York. Plagued by his owners' bad luck, the horse spent most of his twenty-eight years hauling freight but sired many offspring who also showed the strength, endurance, speed, heart, and peculiar conformation of the original Morgan horse. Based on extensive and careful research, this book tells the stories of the origins of the Morgan, the Standardbred, the American Saddle Horse, and the Tennessee Walking Horse as well as their progenitors—Figure, Messenger, Hamiltonian, Black Hawk, Dutchman, Lady Suffolk, Cockspur, Denmark, Tom Hal, Copperbottom, and Roan Allen—and the breeders and fanciers who recognized their special qualities.

Henry Wells (1805–78) and William Fargo (1818–81) first worked together when they broke the Post Office monopoly on mail service along the Erie Canal in the 1840s. In 1852 they incorporated Wells, Fargo & Company and went into the express business in California, carrying gold, letters, packages, and freight between the mining regions and the financial centers of the East. They registered the miners to receive deliveries, guarded the gold-dust shipments, apprehended stage robbers, recovered stolen gold and silver, and established a reliable, conservative banking house in the world's wickedest city, San Francisco. They survived the collapse of the mining industry, the great California panic of 1855, the depredations of bandits such as Rattlesnake Dick and Black Bart, the dominance of the railroads, and the San Francisco earthquake and fire. Acclaimed Western writer Ralph Moody tells the exciting story of Henry Wells and his drivers, messengers, and riders; his accountants, managers, and detectives; and how they built a lasting empire in a business most entrepreneurs thought too risky to try. Moody, author of more than a dozen books on Western subjects, gives an action-packed account that readers young and old will enjoy.

In 1826 an undersized sixteen-year-old apprentice ran away from a saddle maker in Franklin, Missouri, to join one of the first wagon trains crossing the prairie on the Santa Fe Trail. Kit Carson (1809–68) wanted to be a mountain man, and he spent his next sixteen years learning the paths of the West, the ways of its Native inhabitants, and the habits of the beaver, becoming the most successful and respected fur trapper of his time. From 1842 to 1848 he guided John C. FrÉmont’s mapping expeditions through the Rockies and was instrumental in the U.S. military conquest of California during the Mexican War. In 1853 he was appointed Indian agent at Taos, and later he helped negotiate treaties with the Apaches, Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Utes that finally brought peace to the southwestern frontier. Ralph Moody’s biography of Kit Carson, appropriate for readers young and old, is a testament to the judgment and loyalty of the man who had perhaps more influence than any other on the history and development of the American West.

Prior to the Civil War, the fastest mail between the West Coast and the East took almost thirty days by stagecoach along a southern route through Texas. Some Californians feared their state would not remain in the Union, separated so far from the free states. Then businessman William Russell invested in a way to deliver mail between San Francisco and the farthest western railroad, in Saint Joseph, Missouri-across two thousand miles of mountains, deserts, and plains-guaranteed in ten days or less.Russell hired eighty of the best and bravest riders, bought four hundred of the fastest and hardiest horses, and built relay stations along a central route--through modern-day Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, to California. Informed by his intimate knowledge of horses and Western geography, Ralph Moody's exciting account of the eighteen critical months that the Pony Express operated between April 1860 and October 1861 pays tribute to the true grit and determination of the riders and horses of the Pony Express.