Welcome to My Louis L'Amour Fansite
Louis L'Amour is one of my favorite authors. He wrote 89 novels and I don't know how many short stories and poems. What I have attempted to do is take some of my favorites, the Sackett, Chantry and Talon novels and put them in chronological order. While the Sacketts are the best known, he had also planned to write 2 other series about the Chantry and Talon families giving a sort of history of the U.S. in story form.
My Chronology
This page is the chronology based on my reading experience and pleasure. For example, the events detailed in The Sackett Brand are referred to in several of the books before Mr. L'Amour places it and I had people tell me to read that one first; but without knowing the characters, I didn't enjoy it much, so it may be that you will want to follow his chronology the first time you read the books to get to know the characters and later go back and re-read them in my order. I also decided to put my personal chronology back the way I had it, with Fair Blows the Wind as number 3. If you are interested in my reasoning you can Click Here. I've lost count of how many times I've read the series. I've tried to add a bit of CSS to make the charts printable but I couldn't keep it on one page and be real legible. It only prints the table itself. It seemed to work alright in IE9 and FF11.
Book Name | Main Character | Approx. Time | Description | check off |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fair Blows The Wind | Tatton Chantry | 1580's | Founder of the Chantry Family | |
Sackett's Land | Barnabas Sackett | Late 1500's - Early 1600's | Sackett Family "Founder" | |
To The Far Blue Mountains | Barnabas Sackett | Early 1600's | Sackett Family "Founder" | |
The Warrior's Path | Kin Ring & Yance Sackett | 1620's | Founders Of Cumberland Gap (Kin Ring) & Clinch Mountain (Yance) Sacketts | |
Jubal Sackett | Jubal Sackett | 1620's | Brother of Kin & Yance | |
Rivers West | Jean Talon | Early 1800's | Grandson or Great Grandson of The first Talon | |
The Ferguson Rifle | Ronan Chantry | Early 1800's | Ronan Chantry | |
Over on the Dry Side | Owen Chantry | After 1847 (Thanks Henry!) | Owen Chantry | |
Bendigo Shafter | Ethan Sackett | Approx 1835 - 1870 | Ethan Sackett is a secondary character. Book Is about Bendigo Shafter | |
Ride The River | Echo Sackett | 1840's | Includes some Clinch Mountain Sackett and Chantry folk | |
War Party | William Tell Sackett | Post Civil War | Collection Of Short Stories, "Booty For A Badman" Features 19 year old Tell | |
The Daybreakers | Tyrell & Orrin Sackett | 1870 - 1872 | How the Sacketts came West | |
Dark Canyon | Gaylord Riley | 1870 - 1872 | Tell Sackett has a very insignificant cameo appearance as a drifiting cowhand. I include this book for continuity's sake. Not a bad read, though. | |
End of the Drive | Tell Sackett | Post Civil War - 1870 | Collection of short stories, "The Courting of Griselda" features Tell | |
Treasure Mountain | Orrin & Tell | 1875 - 1879 | Includes the Tinker, refers to Colburn "Pa" Sackett. | |
Sackett | William Tell Sackett | 1874 - 1875 | Introduces Tell | |
The First Fast Draw | Cullen Baker | Post Civil War | Not one of the 3 families, but this person is mentioned in passing in "Lando." Good story, though, too. | |
Lando | Orlando Sackett | 1873 - 1875 | Excellent fight scenes. Mr. L'Amour was a boxer, too. | |
Mojave Crossing | Tell Sackett | 1875 - 1879 | Tell | |
Borden Chantry | Borden Chantry | late 1870's, possibly later | Unsure of the dating on this one. | |
Mustang Man | Nolan Sackett | 1875 - 1879 | First book about a Clinch Mountain Sackett descended from Yance | |
The Sackett Brand | Tell Sackett | 1875 - 1879 | Includes 'most every Sackett in the West. | |
The Lonely Men | Tell Sackett | 1875 - 1879 | Includes Orrin's Wife | |
Galloway | Galloway and Flagan Sackett | 1875 - 1879 | Narrated by Flagan. | |
Lonely On The Mountain | Tell, Orrin, Tryrel, & Logan | 1875 - 1879 | Includes Cap Rountree | |
Ride The Dark Trail | Logan Sackett & Emily Talon | 1875 - 1879 | Includes Em's sons, Milo and Barnabas. | |
Son of a Wanted Man | Tyrel Sackett & Borden Chantry | 1875 - 1879 (ish) | Sackett and Chantry are secondary, but important characters. Story is about Mike Bastian. | |
The Sky-Liners | Flagan & Galloway | 1875 - 1879 | A couple of cameo appearances by big names. | |
The Man From The Broken Hills | Milo Talon | 1875 - 1879 | Some backstory on the "Western" Talons. | |
Milo Talon | Milo Talon | 1875 - 1879 | . | |
North To The Rails | Tom Chantry | 1879 or later | Had never used a gun on a person and didn't intend to. | |
Passin' Through | Unknown | Unknown | The main character never gives his name except as "Passin' Through" but I am convinced by an event at the end that he is a Sackett. |
I met an old cowboy in New Mexico one time who had ridden up and down the entire Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and he told me that there was not a place mentioned in one of Louis' books that didn't exist. If he says there is a stream in a certain place, or a rock formation, or whatever, it is there or you can see that it was there.