Lonesome Dove Books in Order: How to read Larry McMurtry’s series?

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Written by the American novelist, essayist, bookseller, and screenwriter Larry McMurtry, the Lonesome Dove series began in 1985 with a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the first of four books taking us back to the 19th century.

This series tells the exploits of Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call (but also Joshua Deets, Pea Eye Parker, Jake Spoon, Clara Forsythe Allen, and more) of the Texas Ranger Division from the time of the Republic of Texas up until the beginning of the 20th century. Five television miniseries and television series are based on these novels.

How to read the Lonesome Dove Series in Order?

You can read the Lonesome Dove book series in order of Publication or in Chronological order, or even in no order at all. Each book tells a complete story.

Lonesome Dove Books in Order of Publication

  1. Lonesome Dove – Set in the late nineteenth century, this is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream — the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners, and friends who have shared hardship and danger together without ever quite understanding (or wanting to understand) each other’s deepest emotions.
  2. Streets of Laredo – Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae’s old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena-once Gus McCrae’s sweetheart. This long chase leads them across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.
  1. Dead Man’s Walk – As young Texas Rangers, Gus and Call have much to learn about survival in a land fraught with perils: not only the blazing heat and raging tornadoes, roiling rivers, and merciless Indians but also the deadly whims of soldiers. On their first expeditions–led by incompetent officers and accompanied by the robust, dauntless whore known as the Great Western–they will face death at the hands of the cunning Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump and the silent Apache Gomez. They will be astonished by the Mexican army. And Gus will meet the love of his life.
  2. Comanche Moon – Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow Call, now in their middle years, continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life — Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him. Two proud but very different men, they enlist with the Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture. Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes.

Lonesome Dove Books in chronological order

  1. Dead Man’s Walk – set in the early 1840s.
  2. Comanche Moon – set in the 1850-60s.
  3. Lonesome Dove – set in the mid-to-late 1870s.
  4. Streets of Laredo – set in the early 1890s.

Television miniseries in order

Broadcast by CBS, the first Lonesome Dove miniseries with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones was a huge success becoming an instant classic. More TV miniseries followed.

  1. Lonesome Dove(1989)
  2. Return to Lonesome Dove (1993) – This miniseries is set a year after the events of Lonesome Dove. The story was written by John Wilder, without McMurtry’s input.
  3. Streets of Laredo (1995)
  4. Dead Man’s Walk (1996)
  5. Comanche Moon (2008)

If you like our article about the Lonesome Dove reading order, don’t forget to bookmark it! If you want more Westerns, you can read Robert B. Parker’s Cole & Hitch series and take a look at the books of Cormac McCarthy.

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