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HOWARD FAST
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The Last Frontier   (1941)

For My Father
WHO TAUGHT ME TO LOVE NOT
ONLY THE AMERICA THAT IS PAST,
BUT THE AMERICA THAT WILL BE

June, 1941. xii, 307 pp, 22.3 cm, on copyright page: "first edition", [rust cloth, gold lettering, top-edge black] map on lining-papers. Duell, Sloan & Pearce. New York. ($2.50)*

Foreword by Carl Van Doren
for the Press of the Reader's Club edition

Oliver La Farge's review of "The Last Frontier"
the Saturday Review, July 26, 1941

Ralph Thompson's review of "The Last Frontier"
the New York Times, July 31, 1941

Rose Feld's review of "The Last Frontier"
the New York Times Book Review, July 27, 1941

Fast's Introduction to the 1997 edition

 

Duell, Sloan & Pearce printing history:
(from the 1945 Pocket Book edition and the 1953 Blue Heron Press edition):
1stJune, 1941
2ndAugust, 1941
3rdDecember, 1941
4thOctober, 1943
5th1947

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1941. (Aug) 2nd printing. Duell, Sloan & Pearce. New York.
1941. (Dec) 3rd printing. Duell, Sloan & Pearce. New York.
1942 (Aug). foreword by Carl Van Doren. 235 pp, 21.7 cm, book club, [beige cloth, red and blue lettering, red Readers Club logo on cover, red top edge] ill, map. The Press of the Readers Club. New York.*
1943. (Oct) 4th printing. Duell, Sloan & Pearce. New York.
1944. 307 pp, 20.5 cm, [brown linson, black lettering, top edge brown]. The Sun Dial Press. Garden City, NY.*
1945. pbk, 247 pp, 16.3 cm, Pocket Books (322). New York.*
1946. 307 pp, 20.5 cm, Tower edition, [red cloth, white lettering]. World Pub. Co. Cleveland.*
1947. xii, 307 pp, 21.2 cm, 5th ptg., [tan cloth, black lettering, dark grey top edge] map on lining-papers. Duell, Sloan & Pearce. New York.*

1.1 cm shorter than the first edition, lighter and thinner. Front dust jacket flap says at top "FIFTH LARGE PRINTING". copyright page shows "Fifth printing". Dust jacket is same, slightly cut down at top and bottom.

1948. 250 pp, 19 cm, 1st British, [green cloth, yellow lettering] "First published 1948. Copyright in the USA". The Bodley Head. London.*
1949. pbk, 156 pp, 16.2 cm, "specially revised and edited for Avon Books". Avon (205).*
1949. 233 pp, 20 cm, Foreign Languages Publishing House. Moscow.
1950. pbk, 192pp. Collins White Circle (CD 458), Toronto, Canada.*
1951. 254 pp, 20.5 cm, [tan cloth, brown lettering]. Foreign Languages Publishing House. Moscow.*
1953. 307 pp, 21 cm, [light sand linson, black lettering]. Blue Heron Press. New York.*

The text on the back cover is excerpted from Carl Van Doren's introduction to the 1942 Press of the Reader's Club edition of The Last Frontier. (cover price $3.00)

1953. pbk, 307 pp, 20.5 cm, Blue Heron Press. New York.*

the text blocks are identical for the hard cover and paperback. The cover price is $1.00

The text on the back cover is excerpted from Carl Van Doren's introduction to the 1942 Press of the Reader's Club edition of The Last Frontier.

1953. pbk, 240 pp, 18.1 cm, Penguin (904, 2/-). Middlesex, UK.*
1955. explanatory notes by E.I. Hakina. 261 pp, 19.5 cm, ill., map "Biblioteka inostrannoi literatury". Foreign Languages Pub. House. Moscow.
1962. pbk. Four Square (0666), UK.
1964. film: Cheyenne Autumn.
1965. pbk, 213pp, 17.8cm, Bantam Books (H2942). New York. (60¢)*

12,000 Against 300
The Army hurled its full force against the escaping Cheyenne. Twelve thousand troopers pursued the ragged band of men, women and children over desert and mountain, attacking them with cavalry, infantry and artillery. But the Cheyenne fought back with a superhuman courage, covered their tracks with an uncanny skill as they pushed farther and farther north, determined to reach their destination or die. The last of the Cheyenne were going home!

"An epic tale of a desperate effort for dignified survival... a rich American novel." —The New York Times

1966.
(Jul) 		pbk. 188pp, 18cm, Mayflower-Dell, UK. (3/6)*
1968. Crown Publishers, Inc. New York.
1971. pbk, xiii, 223 pp, 17.8 cm, "This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Crown Publishers, Inc.". New American Library (Signet T4480, 75¢). New York.*
1973. pbk, 250 pp, 21 cm, "White Lion edition", White Lion Publishers. London, New York. ISBN: 85617615X.
1978
(nd)		pbk, xiii, 223 pp, 17.8 cm, "This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Crown Publishers, Inc.". New American Library (Signet 451-E8255, $1.75). New York.*
1996. UK... ?
1997. pbk, xii,307 pp, 23 cm, "A new edition with a special introduction by the author". M.E. Sharpe (North Castle Books). ISBN: 1563245930.*

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   The tale of three hundred Cheyennes who, herded onto the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, broke away in apparent hopeless flight back to their home in the Black Hills of Wyoming. Ten thousand trained Indian fighters under General Crook were sent out in pursuit across a country networked with railroads and telegraph lines, filled with towns and homesteads. But this tiny band of men and women and children who refused to be beaten in the face of overwhelming odds and hardships, who were willing to sacrifice even their lives for freedom and human dignity, won through at last to their goal.

from the 1945 Pocket Book edition cover

   Here is one of the rousing and inspiriting stories of the old West that is not a Western, a story of flight and pursuit, battle on the Great Plains, and the triumph of an ideal.
   Less than a life span ago, a remnant of the proud Cheyennes, herded onto the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, broke away in apparently hopeless flight back to their home in the Black Hills of Wyoming. The country they had to cross was laced -- for this was in the 1870's -- by railroads and telegraph lines, was filled with towns and homesteads. The Cheyennes numbered no more than three hundred, men and women and children. Ten thousand soldiers, the pick of trained Indian fighters under General Crook, were sent out against them. And yet, by ruse, by their lore of the wilds, by sheer refusal to be beaten in the face of overwhelming odds and hardship, a tiny band won through, over that vast checkerboard, to their goal.
   "In all American history," wrote Struthers Burt in 'Powder River' "there is nothing finer than the loping march of the Cheyennes up from the Indian Territory and their subsequent incredible frozen flight. The march of Xenophon and his ten thousand was as nothing compared with it."
   Treated as Howard Fast has treated it, with superb command of action, but with compassion and indignation, this tale of men who are willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom and for human dignity is no lost "incident" of history. It is a pertinent as well as an absorbingly readable story for the world of today.

from the dust jacket of the Duell, Sloan & Pearce edition


The Last Frontier
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 . (*) The Blue Heron Press (1953) edition states "...has also been published in the following languages: Albanian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czechoslovak, Dutch, French, Georgian, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Japanese, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Ukranian, Uzbek, Yiddish".
 1952. Tsui hou ti pien chiang. (Chinese, tr. by Tsai Hui, Chen Sung-hsèueh, Li Yu-chèueh) [1], 307 pp, 21 cm, Ti 1 pan, [2] p. of plates : ill., map. Hsin wen i chu pan she. Shang-hai.
 1947. Konec stopy. (Czech, tr. by Jan Skorpik) 277 pp, 22 cm, 1., autorisovane vyd., "Knihovna Rudeho prava; roc. 2, sv. 1" series. Knihovna Rudeho prava. Praha.
 1980. Flugten mod friheden. (Danish, tr. by Ulla Warren) illustrated by Karl V. Larsen. 247 pp, 21 cm, ill. Lademann. Kobenhavn.
 1973. De laatste tocht. (Dutch, tr. by Theun de Vries) 306 pp, (Dirk Verstraete) Reinaert Omnibus (18). DAP-Reinaert. Brussel.
 nd. De laatste tocht: een roodhuidenroman. (Dutch) 248 pp, 2de dr, Prisma-boeken (91). Spectrum. Utrecht.
 1983. De laatste tocht. (Dutch, tr. by F. Kliphuis) 246 pp, 22 cm, Loeb. Amsterdam. ISBN: 90-6213-337-1.
 1952. La Dernière Espoir. (French), 252 pp, Hachette.
 1996. La Dernière frontière: le roman des Peaux-Rouges. (French, tr. by de Palaminy) 256 pp, 18 cm, UGE. ISBN: 2264020636.
 1951. Die letzte Grenze. (German) 306 pp, 21 cm, Dietz. Berlin.
 1968. Die letzte Grenze. (German, tr. by Gerhart Kraaz) 344 pp, ill. Büchergilde Gutenberg. Frankfurt am Main; Wien; Zürich.
 1968. Die letzte Grenze. (German, tr. by Gerhart Kraaz) 339 pp, 21 cm, ill. Büchergilde Gutenberg. Hägendorf.
 1977. Die letzte Grenze. (German, tr. by Gerhart Kraaz) with 34 illustrations. 339 pp, 21 cm, Europaeische Verlagsanstalt. Frankfurt am Main.
 1980. Die letzte Grenze: Roman. (German) 242 pp, 19 cm, pbk, rororo (4646). Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag. Reinbek bei Hamburg. ISBN: 3-499-14646-0.
 1950. Az utolso hatar; regeny. (Hungarian) 215 pp, 20 cm, Revai. Budapest.
 1953. L' ultima frontiera. (Italian) 367 pp, 20 cm, Le opere e i giorni, Edizioni di Cultura Sociale. Roma.
 1953. L'ultima frontiera. (Italian) 367 pp, 20 cm, Edizioni di Cultura Sociale (opere e i giorni). Roma.
 1974. L'ultima vittoria dei cheyenne ... (Italian, tr. by Mario Manzari e Bernard Hickey) 278 pp, 22 cm, Longanesi. Milano.
 1954. Ostatnia Granica (Polish, 367 pp, 21 cm, Warszawa.
 1956. Sista gränsen: roman. (Swedish, tr. by Nils G. Holmberg) 252 pp, Arbetarkultur. Stockholm.

 

The Last Frontier 
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Book Review Digest, Sep'41.
Library Journal, 66:615 '41.
New York Herald Tribune Books, IX, p.3, Jul 24'41. Joseph Henry Jackson.
New York Times Book Review, p.6, Jul 27'41. Rose Feld.
New York Times, Jul 31'41, p.15. Ralph Thompson.
Saturday Review of Literature, 24:5(26-7) Jul 26'41. Oliver LaFarge.

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