SOURCE: "History as Melodrama: Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West," in The American West: An Appraisal, edited by Robert G. Ferris, Museum of New Mexico Press, 1963, pp. 201-10.

In the following essay, Lewis explains his reasons for considering The Winning of the West a failure both as literature and as history.

The incongruity of Harvard-educated Theodore Roosevelt in the Bad Lands of North Dakota has been the source of numerous stories. As one of his biographers said: "His somewhat precise tones still flavored by exposure to Harvard culture rang strangely in [the ears of westerners]. He did not smoke or drink. His worst profanity was an infrequent 'Damn!' and his usual ejaculation was 'By Godfrey!' The first time he took part in a round up, sometime during the summer of 1885, one or two hardened cowboys nearly fell from their saddles as he called in his...