A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee.

In 1834, a tired frontiersman sat down to write his own story before anyone else could lie about him. David Crockett had grown weary of newspaper articles and rival politicians twisting his life into something unrecognizable, so he did what any self-respecting Tennessee man would do: he picked up a pen and told the truth himself. What emerges is a rugged, plain-spoken autobiography that begins with his father's service in the Revolutionary War and follows young Davy through the wilds of early Tennessee, when the Crockett family settled among Cherokee neighbors and the threat of violence was a daily companion. He writes of hunting expeditions gone spectacularly wrong, of childhood mischief that nearly got him killed, of the hardscrabble persistence required to claim a piece of frontier land and raise a family on it. This is the book that transformed a Tennessee hunter and politician into a genuine American myth. It endures because it's the real thing: not the legend that came after, but the rough, honest foundation upon which the tall tales were built.