What do you think?
Rate this book
Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen: True Tales of the Old West's Sleaziest Swindlers
CALLING ALL SLEAZY SWINDLERS! Everyone loves a heel, especially one to whom nothing was sacred and who charmed his or her way into the hearts, minds, and wallets of bumpkins and belles alike. Hornswogglers, Fourflushers, and Snake-Oil Salesmen offers dozens of tales of petty bandits, sleazy bunko artists, and conniving conmen (and conwomen!) who traveled West to seek their fortunes by preying on those who went before them to settle and explore.
Hornswogglers, Fourflushers, and Snake-Oil Salesmen tells who these nefarious ne'er-do-wells were, what they did, and why they are remembered, and each chapter is illustrated with engaging historic photos and illustrations of the shady characters at work and play. Lock up your wallet before reading!
Hornswogglers, Fourflushers, and Snake-Oil Salesmen tells who these nefarious ne'er-do-wells were, what they did, and why they are remembered, and each chapter is illustrated with engaging historic photos and illustrations of the shady characters at work and play. Lock up your wallet before reading!
320 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 2015
5 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Matthew P. Mayo
76 books36 followersMatthew P. Mayo is the award-winning author of thirty-plus books and dozens more short stories. His novel, Stranded: A Story of Frontier Survival, won the prestigious Western Heritage Wrangler Award for Outstanding Western Novel by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, as well as the Spur Award for Best Western Juvenile Fiction by the Western Writers of America, the Peacemaker Award for Best YA Novel by Western Fictioneers, and the Willa Literary Award for Best Historical Fiction by Women Writing the West. His novel, Tucker’s Reckoning, won the Spur Award for Best Western Novel, and his short stories have been Spur Award and Peacemaker Award finalists.
He has been an on-screen expert for a popular TV series about lost treasure in the American West, and is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.
Matthew and his wife, photographer and videographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, along with their indefatigable pup, Miss Tess, run Gritty Press (www.GrittyPress.com) and live in the deepest, forested wildlands of Maine. When they’re not battling belligerent bigfoots and foiling the filching ways of hordes of gray squirrels, they rove the byways of North America in search of hot coffee, tasty whiskey, and high adventure. Be sure to rummage at Matthew’s website (www.MatthewMayo.com) for updates about spurious projects, outrageous outings, and a few surprises, too….
He has been an on-screen expert for a popular TV series about lost treasure in the American West, and is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.
Matthew and his wife, photographer and videographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, along with their indefatigable pup, Miss Tess, run Gritty Press (www.GrittyPress.com) and live in the deepest, forested wildlands of Maine. When they’re not battling belligerent bigfoots and foiling the filching ways of hordes of gray squirrels, they rove the byways of North America in search of hot coffee, tasty whiskey, and high adventure. Be sure to rummage at Matthew’s website (www.MatthewMayo.com) for updates about spurious projects, outrageous outings, and a few surprises, too….
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 30, 2024
The writing itself is rough, clunky and a bit kitschy at times, and most or all of the conversations are reconstructions, so I'm not sure how much rigorous research went into it, but on a surface level, the book has some wild tales that are enjoyable to read.
November 9, 2015
Actually 2.5 stars--it was OK. I have a number of these types of books and they all follow a formula of breezy modern descriptions of historical people in whatever category the author is covering. I like them for their short subjects, lively writing, and long bibliographies which I use for research. This one didn't live up my (generally lower) standards for these types of bibliography/history books. The research seemed fine and I enjoyed the photos, but I didn't care for the "creative non-fiction" vignettes where Mayo made up dialog and put us inside the feelings of the characters. I'm sure that makes for more interesting reading for many folks, but for someone looking for more history than entertainment, I found that distracting and inauthentic. If the author wanted to write historical fiction, he's got lots of material, but (IMHO) straight history shouldn't be presented that way.
I also had a minor problem with the way the content was organized. Mayo included chapters on the U.S. government and their consistent cheating of Native Americans, frontier guidebook writers as a group, and San Francisco's struggle to maintain some control over crime during several decades. While all were interesting and worthwhile subjects, they seemed out of character when the subjects of the other chapters were individual people. Plus the women were all shoehorned into one chapter like an afterthought when they could easily have been featured in the other chapters on gamblers, pimps, and con artists. Add on the ugly cover (Mayo should be hopping mad that you can't read his name) and the poorly designed interior and the effort comes off as amateurish.
As someone who reads a lot of serious history, I (probably) have higher standards than the casual consumer of historical entertainment, so add a star if you're looking for entertaining reading about rascally characters. This book does deliver on that.
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I also had a minor problem with the way the content was organized. Mayo included chapters on the U.S. government and their consistent cheating of Native Americans, frontier guidebook writers as a group, and San Francisco's struggle to maintain some control over crime during several decades. While all were interesting and worthwhile subjects, they seemed out of character when the subjects of the other chapters were individual people. Plus the women were all shoehorned into one chapter like an afterthought when they could easily have been featured in the other chapters on gamblers, pimps, and con artists. Add on the ugly cover (Mayo should be hopping mad that you can't read his name) and the poorly designed interior and the effort comes off as amateurish.
As someone who reads a lot of serious history, I (probably) have higher standards than the casual consumer of historical entertainment, so add a star if you're looking for entertaining reading about rascally characters. This book does deliver on that.
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
October 28, 2015
Enjoyable book with short biographies of crooks, thieves and card sharks in the Old West. A good book for travel with short chapters explaining the life and crimes of some well known, lesser known and unknown charlatans. I especially liked the section on the Great Diamond Hoax where diamonds and other gems were "salted" in an area that fooled some of the great names in America. However, the author, Matthew Mayo, missed a good point when Clarence King, the geologist who disproved the scam, was also a scammer, living a double life as a married black man in New York and simultaneously living as a married white man and becoming the first Director of the US Geological Survey in DC.
I also liked the story of Carlotta J. Thompkins, aka Lottie Deno or "Faro Nell". Not only was she a riverboat card shark, but she also ran a mean Faro game, the most rigged card game of the time. She not only thrived and did well, a few decades after her death, she became the inspiration for Miss Kitty in the TV and radio show, Gunsmoke.
In short, this is interesting and well told stories of America's march to the west. A well recommended book.
I also liked the story of Carlotta J. Thompkins, aka Lottie Deno or "Faro Nell". Not only was she a riverboat card shark, but she also ran a mean Faro game, the most rigged card game of the time. She not only thrived and did well, a few decades after her death, she became the inspiration for Miss Kitty in the TV and radio show, Gunsmoke.
In short, this is interesting and well told stories of America's march to the west. A well recommended book.
August 14, 2015
A virtual cornucopia of Con-men and Barons of Bunco. The cast of characters includes Ned Buntline, Soapy Smithy, The Great Wyoming Diamond Hoax of 1872, Doc Baggs, Snake-oil Stanley, George DeVol-King of the Riverboat Gamblers, James Addison Peralta-Reavis: Arizona's Lord of Fraud, Alexander McKenzie: The Biggest Claim-Jumper Ever, Unhelpful guides: Untested Untrue Unworthy!, Sherriff Henry Plummer, et al. A very readable compendium of mischief makers from the Old West. Some of the worst, IMHO were the authors who penned guidebooks to places they had never seen nor visited. This includes guidebooks by Lansford Hastings and Joseph Ware, the former was partially responsible for the fate of the Donner Party due to his description of a shortcut that wasn't. Matthew Mayo explains that nearly every guidebook written prior to the Civil War was questionable as an authority, due to the fictional fabrications of the authors. Truly enlightening and entertaining. A must-read for anyone interested in U.S. Western history and folklore. Illustrated.
October 24, 2015
Thanks to the folks at LibraryThing for giving me a copy.
An interesting study of con men who plied their trade in the old west. Better written than most non-fiction but I thought the dialogue which the author admitted he took liberties with would have been better if it had been omitted. A bit too long in terms of the number of different individuals presented as after a while the swindles are mostly variations on the same theme. I found it interesting that schemes which are still being perpetrated today can be traced all the way back to the 1800s. Overall a nice look at a bunch of shady characters. 3 1/2 stars.
An interesting study of con men who plied their trade in the old west. Better written than most non-fiction but I thought the dialogue which the author admitted he took liberties with would have been better if it had been omitted. A bit too long in terms of the number of different individuals presented as after a while the swindles are mostly variations on the same theme. I found it interesting that schemes which are still being perpetrated today can be traced all the way back to the 1800s. Overall a nice look at a bunch of shady characters. 3 1/2 stars.
October 20, 2015
This book is as fun to read as the name implies. Mayo presents many interesting old American slime-balls in quick and satisfying little chapters. It’s often easy to say “that’s greed for you” but there were other cons that could break your heart.
While many of these scams seem so obvious to us today, it makes you realize how desperate, ill-informed and hopeful their marks were. Practically begging for someone to take their money in exchange for a taste of the American dream of success. And where you find dreams, you will always find dream-catchers. Those old sons-o-guns!
This review is based on a copy I received from Librarything.com.
While many of these scams seem so obvious to us today, it makes you realize how desperate, ill-informed and hopeful their marks were. Practically begging for someone to take their money in exchange for a taste of the American dream of success. And where you find dreams, you will always find dream-catchers. Those old sons-o-guns!
This review is based on a copy I received from Librarything.com.
December 12, 2016
Review of: Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen: True Tales of the Old West's Sleaziest Swindlers, by Matthew P. Mayo
by Stan Prager (3-3-16)
I take my responsibility as an “Early Reviewer” very seriously, so when I obtain a book under such circumstances, I feel an obligation to both the author and the Early Reviewers program to read it through cover-to-cover in order to fairly evaluate it. Absent that strong sense of commitment, I would certainly have abandoned Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen: True Tales of the Old West's Sleaziest Swindlers, by Matthew P. Mayo, somewhere around page twelve. Instead, I agonizingly forced my way through all of its twenty-two chapters and two hundred seventy-seven pages of character sketches – which unfortunately simply reinforced my first impression.
In fairness to the author, I am probably the wrong audience for a book like this, as reader or reviewer. Still, in fairness to me it is billed as American History – which is why I initially requested it – and the back cover duly claims it as History/US-19th Century. But more importantly, in fairness to actual historians who painstakingly research, analyze, interpret and write books about history, Hornswogglers hardly qualifies as history at all, except perhaps in the very broadest sense in that its content is concerned with the past. This book is written for a popular rather than a scholarly academic audience, but I do not object to that; I commonly read both kinds of histories and am comfortable evaluating each on their respective merits. I might, in general, take exception to the absence of notes, which is sloppy for either kind of work, but in this case that is really the very least complaint a reviewer could raise. To my mind, this is simply a dreadfully bad book on a variety of levels.
Deafening alarm bells went off on the third page of the “Introduction” as Mayo nonchalantly reveals that: “At various points I used poetic license by adding dialogue and supporting characters where firsthand accounts were scarce.” [p xiii] Really??? I must admit a sense of astonishment: this is my first experience with an author of an ostensible work of history who has freely and insouciantly confessed to the manufacture of conversations as well as some of the individuals peopling his chronicle. We have a name for books that fall into this category – historical fiction – a perfectly legitimate genre that has produced magnificent works by the likes of Michael Shaara, Mary Renault and Gore Vidal. But these are emphatically not styled as history.
By way of exception, I will grant a willingness to give a pass to Thucydides, who in his magisterial The History of the Peloponnesian War clearly imagines exchanges between key individuals that he could not have witnessed. But nothing in Hornswogglers comes up even close to the level of the “Melian Dialogue.” In fact, concocted inner-monologues and dialogues characterize at least eighty percent of the narrative, and much of it reeks with simply bad writing, of the “dark and stormy night” variety. Moreover, it lacks all measure of authenticity, especially because it tries so hard to be authentic. Imagine, if you would, the kinds of scripts written for popular “Grade-B” Westerns in the Hollywood of the 1940s, with a character actor such as Walter Brennan cast as a grizzled prospector downing a foamy beer in a saloon while spouting the derivative canned vernacular that was a typical ingredient of an old-fashioned celluloid horse opera – much of Hornswogglers is a poorer echo of that!
And what of the author, Matthew P. Mayo? The back cover bio proudly touts that he “is a Spur Award-winning writer” (an award for writers of Western fiction), and goes on to note that: “He roves the highways and byways of North America . . . in search of high adventure, hot coffee, and tasty whisky.” His website adds only that he is an Eagle Scout and an “on-screen expert for a popular BBC-TV series about lost treasure.” Whether he has had a formal education or any training for writing proper history is conspicuous in its absence. My guess would be not so much.
I suppose there are those who would be entertained by some of the colorful character vignettes in this book, but I would suspect that those like myself concerned with the documentary history of the American West would not be a part of this audience. A “hornswoggler” is apparently defined as a deceiver who dupes a hapless victim: I cannot help but feel that I was hornswoggled into reading this book.
My review of: "Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen" by Matthew Mayo is live on my book blog http://wp.me/p5Hb6f-70
by Stan Prager (3-3-16)
I take my responsibility as an “Early Reviewer” very seriously, so when I obtain a book under such circumstances, I feel an obligation to both the author and the Early Reviewers program to read it through cover-to-cover in order to fairly evaluate it. Absent that strong sense of commitment, I would certainly have abandoned Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen: True Tales of the Old West's Sleaziest Swindlers, by Matthew P. Mayo, somewhere around page twelve. Instead, I agonizingly forced my way through all of its twenty-two chapters and two hundred seventy-seven pages of character sketches – which unfortunately simply reinforced my first impression.
In fairness to the author, I am probably the wrong audience for a book like this, as reader or reviewer. Still, in fairness to me it is billed as American History – which is why I initially requested it – and the back cover duly claims it as History/US-19th Century. But more importantly, in fairness to actual historians who painstakingly research, analyze, interpret and write books about history, Hornswogglers hardly qualifies as history at all, except perhaps in the very broadest sense in that its content is concerned with the past. This book is written for a popular rather than a scholarly academic audience, but I do not object to that; I commonly read both kinds of histories and am comfortable evaluating each on their respective merits. I might, in general, take exception to the absence of notes, which is sloppy for either kind of work, but in this case that is really the very least complaint a reviewer could raise. To my mind, this is simply a dreadfully bad book on a variety of levels.
Deafening alarm bells went off on the third page of the “Introduction” as Mayo nonchalantly reveals that: “At various points I used poetic license by adding dialogue and supporting characters where firsthand accounts were scarce.” [p xiii] Really??? I must admit a sense of astonishment: this is my first experience with an author of an ostensible work of history who has freely and insouciantly confessed to the manufacture of conversations as well as some of the individuals peopling his chronicle. We have a name for books that fall into this category – historical fiction – a perfectly legitimate genre that has produced magnificent works by the likes of Michael Shaara, Mary Renault and Gore Vidal. But these are emphatically not styled as history.
By way of exception, I will grant a willingness to give a pass to Thucydides, who in his magisterial The History of the Peloponnesian War clearly imagines exchanges between key individuals that he could not have witnessed. But nothing in Hornswogglers comes up even close to the level of the “Melian Dialogue.” In fact, concocted inner-monologues and dialogues characterize at least eighty percent of the narrative, and much of it reeks with simply bad writing, of the “dark and stormy night” variety. Moreover, it lacks all measure of authenticity, especially because it tries so hard to be authentic. Imagine, if you would, the kinds of scripts written for popular “Grade-B” Westerns in the Hollywood of the 1940s, with a character actor such as Walter Brennan cast as a grizzled prospector downing a foamy beer in a saloon while spouting the derivative canned vernacular that was a typical ingredient of an old-fashioned celluloid horse opera – much of Hornswogglers is a poorer echo of that!
And what of the author, Matthew P. Mayo? The back cover bio proudly touts that he “is a Spur Award-winning writer” (an award for writers of Western fiction), and goes on to note that: “He roves the highways and byways of North America . . . in search of high adventure, hot coffee, and tasty whisky.” His website adds only that he is an Eagle Scout and an “on-screen expert for a popular BBC-TV series about lost treasure.” Whether he has had a formal education or any training for writing proper history is conspicuous in its absence. My guess would be not so much.
I suppose there are those who would be entertained by some of the colorful character vignettes in this book, but I would suspect that those like myself concerned with the documentary history of the American West would not be a part of this audience. A “hornswoggler” is apparently defined as a deceiver who dupes a hapless victim: I cannot help but feel that I was hornswoggled into reading this book.
My review of: "Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen" by Matthew Mayo is live on my book blog http://wp.me/p5Hb6f-70
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews