For years, the great folklorist convinced many scholars and activists that the vaunted “Texas Man of Letters” was an anti-Mexican racist. Maybe it’s time to reconsider that judgment—as Paredes himself eventually did.
In 1975 the estate of J. Frank Dobie (1888–1964) established an endowment that would allow the University of Texas Press to keep his books in print for decades to come. Forty years later, the arrangement is still in place, and the press annually sells thousands of copies of
My list of the best Texas books ever written.
Dobie, Bedichek, and Webb were the leading Texas writers and intellectuals of their age. But as ribald raconteurs, they were ahead of their time.
Forty years after its publication, Horseman, Pass By is still one of Larry McMurtry's finest novelsand as groundbreaking as J. D. Salinger's masterpiece.
It took me half my life to figure out that most of what I thought I knew about J. Frank Dobie was wrong.
Rereading John Graves
Horseman, Pass By
Pompeo Coppini’s heroic sculptures and European air were just what Texas’ fledgling gentry was hungry for in 1901. Since then his name has faded from memory, but his works endure.
