The Wire Cutters

by Mollie E. Moore Davis, Lou Halsell Rodenberger (Introduction)

The first novel to seriously portray nineteenth-century cowboy life, The Wire-Cutters was Mollie E. Moore Davis's tour de force inspired by the Fence Cutting Wars fought by competing cattlemen and ranchers in Central Texas. First published in 1899, the novel introduced readers to a new kind of storytelling that prefigured an entire American literary genre—the Western—and predated Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902) and Andy Adams's Log of a Cowboy (1903), two novels widely regarded as the first Westerns by many unfamiliar with Davis's groundbreaking work.

Considered among the best of the region's early writers, Davis spent time as a writer and newspaperwoman in Texas and Louisiana, using both states as settings for her stories. Her body of work demonstrates the movement away from romantic conventions toward a storytelling that relied more heavily on realism. Davis' Texas-based novels especially reveal a writer whose sharp ear for regional dialect, abundant sense of frontier humor, and keen grasp of historical detail drive a narrative that is grounded in observable and shared experience. Centered around the destructive fence-cutting war waged against ranchers by cattlemen whose herds were cut off from water, The Wire-Cutters recreates the colorful vernacular and often quirky personalities of the cowboys, the rich folk culture of the region, and the particulars of daily life on the Western frontier.

Now, with a foreword by Lou Halsell Rodenberger which delineates the historical and literary significance of this important but forgotten novel, The Wire-Cutters is available for the first time since its initial publication to literary and cultural scholars and historians, as well as to lovers of the Western novel and readers of Texana.

Genres: Classics

396 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis (pen name, "M. E. M. Davis") was a poet, short-story writer, novelist, playwright, memoirist, and one of the most commercially successful professional writers in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Her work was published by Houghton Mifflin and appeared in magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly and the Saturday Evening Post. She was a regular contributor to The Times Picayune and her salon in the French Quarter attracted national literati, giving local writers opportunities for publication. Although largely unknown today, her work was instrumental in creating the romantic portrait of the French Quarter that still endures.

In 1855, at age 6, she moved with her family from Alabama to Texas and subsequently lived at Manchaca, San Marcos, Garden Valley, Tyler, and Galveston. At the age of sixteen she began writing for Tyler newspapers, and her poems attracted the attention of Edward H. Cushing of the Houston Telegraph. During the next five years, which she spent in Tyler and Houston, she wrote most of her best poetry and gained a statewide reputation. In 1867, when her family moved to Galveston, her poems appeared in the Galveston News and her first collection, Minding the Gap and Other Poems, was published by Cushing.

In 1874 she married Thomas E. Davis, who in 1879 joined the staff of the New Orleans Times. Mrs. Davis, already nationally recognized as a poet, became a leader in social and literary life in New Orleans as she had been during the previous five years in Houston. During extended visits to her brother's family in Comanche, Texas, she conquered tuberculosis and collected story material. By 1889, when she became editor of the Picayune, her home had become a literary salon.

Her works are divided between Texas and New Orleans backgrounds, between juvenile and adult literature, between poetry and prose, and between realism and romanticism.

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is suppose to be the first Western novel, and this in not a genre that I usually seek out. I did enjoy this book, but felt at times it took so long to get to the ending that had all sorts of twists and turns. The book focuses on Roy Hilliiard. A genetic fluke causes him to look like his mother's first husband, and he gets raised by the Hilliard family, not remembering the Deerfields. As an adult Roy becomes a rivial to his biological brother Allan in beliefs, friendship, and love. Wire-cutters deals with the issues of open range being fenced in along with some darker themes.

[David Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four years prior to publication of Owen Wister’s genre-defining Western ‘The Virginian’, M.E. Davis penned this little gem of a novel, arguably setting the stage for all intelligent Western storytelling.

With the ‘Western’ not yet in existence as a genre, Davis’ novel, ‘The Wire Cutters’ is not what you have come to expect of a novel about the Texas Frontier. The novel is a curious Victorian-era drama set in Central Texas. At times it reads like George Eliot or Thomas Hardy, with its acute grasp of local vernacular, realist drama, complex relationships and painstaking character development. Toward the latter-half the author also unveils a series of edge-of-your-seat melodramatic events that are borderline Dickensian in their revelation. The overall effect is that it feels like a good 19th Century English novel set on the American frontier. The novel is simply a reflection of that time.

While ‘The Wirecutters’ is surprisingly good drama, its literary aspirations ought not be lightly overlooked either. The protagonist, Hilliard is a Southern cowboy Gentleman-type who brings chivalry to the open range. It stands to reason that Owen Wister may have borrowed from Hilliard in creating the iconic character of ‘The Virginian’. Davis’ Victorian values imbue the Western frontiersmen with a sense of honor and dignity: Good people do what’s right, even if it’s hard. They also give one another the benefit of the doubt and turn the other cheek.

While Victorian chivalry dominates Davis’ West, ‘The Wirecutters’ is not about Old World values. Davis has, in essence, created something new: the values in the story are not ‘Victorian’, as much as they are ‘Western’. Davis had a hand in penning those values and presenting them to the world for the first time. The stuffiness of the East/South, and the old ways pale when compared with the bloom and promise of the Frontier. The West had promise; Davis paints it that way, defining a whole new genre.

You have to read it!

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it off a book club sponsored by the Kansas Humanities Council. It reads like a book written in an earlier time which is precisely what it is.
I particularly enjoyed the use of biblical or near-biblical imagery. The story seems a bit contrived, a coincidence or two too many, but I enjoyed it. Purportedly the first of the cowboy or western genre, I found it to be a refreshing change.

[Carole Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a tough time getting into this book because of the antiquated style and the use of dialects; however, about halfway into the book I got past my irritation and recognized the devices the author used to portray the different players in this real period of American history. It was worth reading.

[Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading! This is apparently the first western to have been written. The twists at the end happen fast enough to turn your head. If you like Louis L'Amour, you'll appreciate this. I'm getting it for my dad for his birthday.

[MJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for American Gothic Literature course

HONESTLY I'M SO MAD THIS ENDED THE WAY IT DID BECAUSE I GOT SUPER INVESTED AND THEN OF FRIGGIN COURSE THE BAD DUDE GETS AWAY AND THE STATUS OF MY SHIP IS LEFT SUPER AMBIGUOUS!!!!!! GDI!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read my review at my blog.