David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [114]
At the beginning of 1833, a book sparked in part by the Paulding drama and entitled The Life and Adventures of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee was published in Cincinnati. Later in the year, after a few changes were made in the text, the book was reissued in New York and London as the Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee. For many years the anonymous author was reputed to be a Virginia novelist, James Strange French. Although French always denied writing the book, its authorship was ascribed to him based on the opinion of the illustrious Edgar Allan Poe, who, in his early literary career, was best known as a scathing critic rather than as a writer of fiction and poetry.7 As critic for the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836, three years after Sketches appeared, Poe wrote a piece about French’s recently published two-volume novel, Elkswatawa; or, The Prophet of the West. Featured in the novel was the “Crockettrean character,” Poe wrote, named “Earthquake,” an obvious allusion to the “land of the shakes.” Poe mentioned in passing that French also had written the Sketches book about Crockett.
“This novel [Elkswatawa] is written by Mr. James S. French of Jerusalem, Virginia—the author, we believe of ‘Eccentricities of David Crockett,’ a book of which we know nothing beyond the fact of its publication.”8 From that point forward, French was most often cited as the author of Sketches. In 1956, however, over a century later, James Shackford’s Crockett biography made the claim that, although French had the copyright for Sketches and received royalties, he did not write the book. According to Shackford, the author was Matthew St. Clair Clarke, a staunch Whig who—due to his political affiliation—had lost his post as clerk of the House of Representatives under Jackson.9
“If Clarke was the author, why did he copyright the book in the name of another?” That was Shackford’s rhetorical question. “The answer is evident,” he wrote. “The volume was composed as part of an effort to re-elect David Crockett to Congress as an anti-Jacksonian and supporter of the United States Bank, and to increase his usefulness through a multiplication of his fame.”10
Clarke knew Crockett from his first days in Congress, and the two became friends. Like most others, Clarke was known to enjoy listening to Crockett’s yarns about hunting and life in the backwoods. The two men traveled together at various times when Crockett visited back east, and Clarke may have visited Crockett in west Tennessee. “The country which it falls my lot most particularly to describe, is the western district of Tennessee; and of that, to me, that most interesting spot, was Col. Crockett’s residence,” the author writes in the introduction to Sketches. “There, far retired from the bustle of the world, he lives, and chews, for amusement, the cud of his political life. He has settled himself over the grave of an earthquake, which often reminds him of the circumstance by moving itself as if tired of confinement. The wild face of the country—the wide chasms—the new formed lakes, together with its great loneliness, render it interesting in the extreme to the traveler.”11
The book was immensely popular and sold well, but anyone who read it and had also seen the stage drama Lion of the West would have recognized the curious similarity in language and choice of story content. In creating dialogue for the book, lines from the play were directly pirated from Nimrod Wildfire and put into Crockett’s mouth, as if now the stage creation provided the source for biography. In many instances the phrasing was altered but the intent retained. For example, in Lion of the West, Wildfire boasts: “I’m half horse, half