trail out back of the house

Welcome to My Louis L'Amour Fansite

Louis L'Amour is one of my favorite authors. He wrote 89 novels and I don't know how many short stories and poems. What I have attempted to do is take some of my favorites, the Sackett, Chantry and Talon novels and put them in chronological order. While the Sacketts are the best known, he had also planned to write 2 other series about the Chantry and Talon families giving a sort of history of the U.S. in story form.

Louis L'Amour's Chronology

This page is the chronology based on the book The Sackett Companion by Louis L'Amour himself. The book only covers the Sacketts, obviously, so the rest is my own guesswork, based on having read and re-read the books. I've tried to add a bit of CSS to make the charts printable but I couldn't keep it on one page and be real legible. It only prints the table itself. It seemed to work alright in IE9, FF11 and Google Chrome.

Louis L'Amour's Chronology
To print only this chart, use "Print Preview" or click here.
Book NameMain CharacterApprox. TimeDescriptioncheck off
Fair Blows The Wind Tatton Chantry 1580's Founder of the Chantry Family
Sackett's Land Barnabas Sackett Late 1500's - Early 1600's Sackett Family "Founder"
To The Far Blue Mountains Barnabas Sackett Early 1600's Sackett Family "Founder"
The Warrior's Path Kin Ring & Yance Sackett 1620's Founders Of Cumberland Gap (Kin Ring) & Clinch Mountain (Yance) Sacketts
Jubal Sackett Jubal Sackett 1620's Brother of Kin & Yance
Rivers West Jean Talon Early 1800's Grandson or Great Grandson of The first Talon
The Ferguson Rifle Ronan Chantry Early 1800's Ronan Chantry
Over on the Dry Side Owen Chantry After 1847 (Thanks Henry!) Owen Chantry
Bendigo Shafter Ethan Sackett Approx 1835 - 1870 Ethan Sackett is a secondary character. Book Is about Bendigo Shafter
Ride The River Echo Sackett 1840's Includes some Clinch Mountain Sackett and Chantry folk
War Party William Tell Sackett Post Civil War Collection Of Short Stories, "Booty For A Badman" Features 19 year old Tell
The Daybreakers Tyrell & Orrin Sackett 1870 - 1872 How the Sacketts came West
Dark Canyon Gaylord Riley 1870 - 1872 Tell Sackett has a very insignificant cameo appearance as a drifiting cowhand. I include this book for continuity's sake. Not a bad read, though.
End of the Drive Tell Sackett Post Civil War - 1870 Collection of short stories, "The Courting of Griselda" features Tell
Sackett William Tell Sackett 1874 - 1875 Introduces Tell
The First Fast Draw Cullen Baker Post Civil War Not one of the 3 families, but this person is mentioned in passing in "Lando." Good story, though, too.
Lando Orlando Sackett 1873 - 1875 Excellent fight scenes. Mr. L'Amour was a boxer, too.
Mojave Crossing Tell Sackett 1875 - 1879 Tell
Borden Chantry Borden Chantry late 1870's, possibly later Unsure of the dating on this one.
Mustang Man Nolan Sackett 1875 - 1879 First book about a Clinch Mountain Sackett descended from Yance
The Lonely Men Tell Sackett 1875 - 1879 Includes Orrin's Wife
Galloway Galloway and Flagan Sackett 1875 - 1879 Narrated by Flagan.
Treasure Mountain Orrin & Tell 1875 - 1879 Includes the Tinker, refers to Colburn "Pa" Sackett.
Lonely On The Mountain Tell, Orrin, Tryrel, & Logan 1875 - 1879 Includes Cap Rountree
Ride The Dark Trail Logan Sackett & Emily Talon 1875 - 1879 Includes Em's sons, Milo and Barnabas.
Son of a Wanted Man Tyrel Sackett & Borden Chantry 1875 - 1879 (ish) Sackett and Chantry are secondary, but important characters. Story is about Mike Bastian.
The Sackett Brand Tell Sackett 1875 - 1879 Includes 'most every Sackett in the West.
The Sky-Liners Flagan & Galloway 1875 - 1879 A couple of cameo appearances by big names.
The Man From The Broken Hills Milo Talon 1875 - 1879 Some backstory on the "Western" Talons.
Milo Talon Milo Talon 1875 - 1879
North To The Rails Tom Chantry 1879 or later Had never used a gun on a person and didn't intend to.
Passin' Through Unknown Unknown The main character never gives his name except as "Passin' Through" but I am convinced by an event at the end that he is a Sackett.
Thanks for printing from http://www.herbthiel.com I hope you enjoy reading LL as much as I do.

I met an old cowboy in New Mexico one time who had ridden up and down the entire Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and he told me that there was not a place mentioned in one of Louis' books that didn't exist. If he says there is a stream in a certain place, or a rock formation, or whatever, it is there or you can see that it was there.