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Home > Bibliographies > Minibibliographies > The Sackett Stories by Louis L'Amour
Content last modified May 1996
Louis L'Amour's Sackett family saga traces the lives of ten generations of rugged and strongly individualistic men and women as they forge westward from a village in sixteenth-century Elizabethan England to the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina and the wild, uncharted land beyond the Mississippi River. Little did the author know when he wrote The Daybreakers, published in 1960, that his tale of two brothers who travel west after the Civil War would develop into a bestselling seventeen-volume adventure of the opening of the American frontier spanning four hundred years. The Sacketts were farmers, fighters, gold-seekers, lawmakers, cattle drivers, ranchers, bankers, and outlaws, but above all, they were people bound by the common thread of family whose power lay in their unquestioned loyalty to one another. L'Amour created their personalities, triumphs, and sorrows from a combination of personal experience and knowledge and historical fact. In The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels (Bantam Books, 1988) published shortly after his death, L'Amour provides readers with the sources and inspirations behind each of the Sackett stories. His chronological listing of the novels was used as a basis for arranging the following list of the Sackett saga available from NLS network library collections.
Sackett's Land
The saga begins in England in 1599 and follows Barnabas Sackett, the son of a Celtic yeoman, from his struggles in the English countryside and Elizabethan London to his migration to the New World. 1974
RC 33963
RD 7604
BR 9555
BRA 15605
To the Far Blue Mountains
Barnabas Sackett returns briefly to England where he encounters old friends and some enemies and is reunited with his wife, Abigail. Together they sail for America and finally decide to settle at Shooting Creek in the Blue Ridge mountains bordering Tennessee and North Carolina. Abigail's first son, Kin-Ring, is born in the midst of an Indian battle. The birth of three more sons and a daughter establishes the family dynasty. 1976
RC 11940
The Warrior's Path
Kin-Ring and his brother, Yance, return to Shooting Creek with their wives. The time is now around 1620. The brothers respond to a call for help from Yance's mother-in-law, whose younger daughter seems to have disappeared while gathering herbs in the forest with a friend. Although the brothers first suspect that the two girls have been kidnapped by the fierce Pequot Indians, the trail leads them instead to slave traders and from Boston to Jamaica. 1980
RC 33993
BR 4684
Jubal Sackett
In the 1620s, Jubal, son of Barnabas and Abigail, sets off to traverse the vast, unexplored North American hinterland, seeking a place where someday other Sacketts may need to go to take further refuge from their enemies. On the way, he befriends Keokotah, a proud Kickapoo brave, and then meets and marries a beautiful Indian princess of the Natchez. Bestseller. 1985
RC 21540
FD 21540
BR 6207
Ride the River
The time is now the 1840s. Echo Sackett, a great-great granddaughter of Kin-Ring, is a small, dainty, but determined and exceptional woman who travels from her mountain home to Philadelphia to claim the family inheritance. There she runs into a crew of greedy killers who aim to separate her from her legacy. They soon learn that Echo is a dead shot with a rifle and has more courage than the law allows. 1983
RC 21601
BR 5522
The Daybreakers
Echo's nephews, Tyrel and Orrin Sackett, go west after the Civil War. They become involved in a feud and a killing before they land their first job as cattle-drivers. Soon the brothers bring law and order from Santa Fe to Montana and help make the West a safer place. 1960
RC 36179
BR 4182
Sackett
William Tell Sackett, oldest brother of Tyrel and Orrin, discovers a vein of gold and all the problems that go with it. He also meets beautiful Ange Kerry and brings her back to become his wife. 1961
RC 16467
BRA 16651
Lando
Orlando, son of Falcon Sackett and Aleyne Kurbishaw, embarks on a quest for gold in Mexico that ends in betrayal and a six-year sentence in a Mexican prison. He acquires a taste for revenge that nothing will stop. 1962
RC 12457
Mojave Crossing
William Tell Sackett is carrying thirty pounds of gold in his saddlebags when, by coincidence, he meets a beautiful woman who convinces him to escort her across the desert to Los Angeles. 1964
RC 8839
BRA 13611
Mustang Man
In the year 1875, Nolan Sackett is a tough mountain man, but has a tender spot for ladies in distress. Although he is being chased by a posse, he takes time to rescue a woman, only to discover later that he has to shoot his way out of her clutches. 1966
RC 22141
BR 9556
The Lonely Men
William Tell Sackett is lured into the Apache's mountain stronghold by the icy beauty of his brother's wife. With him go his friends, John J. Battles, Spanish Murphy, and the half-breed Tampico. Each is driven by his past to test his speed and cunning against the enemy. 1969
RC 16257
RD 10390
BR 9572
BRA 13811
Galloway
Flagan and Galloway Sackett, cousins of Tell, Orrin, and Tyrel and descendants of Kin-Ring Sackett, are searching for a place to start ranching when Flagan is captured by Apaches. He escapes and finds himself a fugitive in the mountains with only his wits as defense against the Indians and the hungry wolves stalking him. Galloway fends off trouble from greedy renegades while searching for Flagan. 1970
RC 34976
RD 11385
BR 9514
Treasure Mountain
Tracking a trail that is twenty years old, William Tell and Orrin Sackett are determined to find both their father and a million dollars in gold buried in the mountains. They travel to New Orleans to make inquiries and come face to face with new enemies who have no wish to see old mysteries reexamined. 1972
RC 23518
BR 2412
Lonely on the Mountain
The saga of the Sacketts continues as Tyrel and Tell help cousin Logan to herd 1,100 steers across the desolate Dakota plains and through the heart of Sioux territory to the goldmining country of British Columbia. Bestseller. 1980
RC 16515
FD 16515
BR 4750
Ride the Dark Trail
With acres of good ranch land in his possession, Reed Talon heads east to Tennessee to court and marry the tall mountain girl, Emily Sackett. Together they work their land in northern Colorado and raise their children. Reed dies under strange circumstances, and Logan Sackett comes to the rescue of the elderly Emily after she is threatened by a tough gang of cowboys. 1972
RC 35030
BR 9568
BRA 13968
The Sackett Brand
In 1877, Tell Sackett is shot and badly injured and his wife, Ange, is murdered when they are attacked in the Mogollon Rim country by forty gunslingers. News of the attack reaches the ears of other Sacketts, and from near and far they head for Mogollon whether they be politicians, outlaws, cattlemen, bankers, or tinkers. 1965
RC 36901
BR 9571
The Skyliners
Two Sackett brothers, Flagan and Galloway, run into Black Fetchen's gang when they go into town to pay off a debt. A feud develops, and they find themselves contending with the most expensive hired guns in the country. Little do they know that a gun battle is nothing compared with having to escort a young lady home to Colorado, especially when the lady has romantic notions about Black Fetchen. 1967
RC 14808
BR 9576
In The Sackett Companion, L'Amour reveals his decision to no longer include the following story as one of the Sackett saga as he considered it more of a Talon story.
Man from the Broken Hills
The story concerns Milo Talon, who was half Talon and half Sackett. Milo tracks a man who betrayed a trust with his kin through the post-Civil War West. On the trail, he runs into cattle-rustling in Texas and a brewing range war. 1975
RC 35047
BR 3068
BR 4590
Compiled by Ellie Friedman
Revised by Joyce Y. Carter
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Posted on 2006-02-24