With the publication of The Splendid Wayfaring in 1920, John G. Neihardt sought to restore the reputation of a mountain man who went far in opening up the American West. The exciting narrative begins in 1822, when Smith ascended the Missouri River in the first fur-trading expedition of William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry, and ends in 1831, when he was killed by Comanche Indians on the Cimarron River. In the intervening years Smith became the first explorer to recognize South Pass as the gateway to the Far West, the first overlander to reach California and travel up the coast to the Columbia River, and the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin from west to east. The Splendid Wayfaring follows in novelistic detail the history-making adventures of Smith and his companions.

The Poetical gazette; the official organ of the Poetry society and a review of poetical affairs, nos. 4-7 issued as supplements to the Academy, v. 79, Oct. 15, Nov. 5, Dec. 3 and 31, 1910

Vols. for 1898-1968 include a directory of publishers.

Biography of John N. Neihardt, Poet Laureate of Nebraska in 1921 and Prairie Poet Laureate of America in 1968, was literary editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1926 to 1938 and poet in residence and lecturer in English at the University of Missouri - Columbia from 1949 to 1965. The author of some twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and philosophy, his works include 'Black Elk Speaks,' 'Lyric and Dramatic Poems,' and 'A Cycle of the West.'