The Brave Cowboy: An Old Tale in a New Time was published by Dodd, Mead in 1956 and is Edward Abbey’s second novel — the book that first articulated his lifelong theme: the individual against the machine, the anarchist against the state, the wild against the tamed. Jack Burns, a cowboy who still rides horseback and carries no identification, breaks into jail to free his friend Paul Bondi (imprisoned for refusing to register for the draft), discovers Bondi won’t leave, and then must flee across the New Mexico landscape pursued by helicopters, jeeps, and a military bureaucracy that cannot tolerate a man who refuses to be documented.
The Novel
The book operates as both realistic Western and philosophical parable. Burns is not a romantic figure — he is dirty, stubborn, slightly ridiculous in his insistence on horseback travel in an age of automobiles. But he is also genuinely free in a way no one else in the novel is: free because he has chosen poverty over participation, solitude over society, the open desert over the documented life.
The pursuit is relentless and asymmetric. Burns on horseback moves at ten miles per hour; the sheriff’s jeeps move at sixty. But Burns knows the mountains — the sheep trails, the water sources, the passes that vehicles cannot traverse. The contest between ancient knowledge and modern technology gives the novel its structure and its suspense.
The ending is deliberately anti-climactic and devastating: Burns makes it across the mountains, reaches the highway — and is struck by a truck hauling bathroom fixtures. The machine wins not through superior force but through sheer ubiquity. There is no “outside” left.
Film Adaptation
Kirk Douglas read the novel, optioned it, and produced the 1962 film Lonely Are the Brave (directed by David Miller, screenplay by Dalton Trumbo). It is one of the finest literary Westerns ever filmed — Douglas considered it his personal favorite among his films. The movie is faithful to Abbey’s vision: Burns (Douglas) is neither idealized nor mocked, and the film’s ending retains the novel’s bitter irony.
Collecting The Brave Cowboy
First edition (Dodd, Mead, New York, 1956): Brown cloth binding. Dust jacket with Western illustration.
Identification points:
- Dodd, Mead imprint
- First edition (no subsequent printings stated)
- 277 pages
Market values: Fine copies in dust jacket bring $500–$1,500. Abbey’s second novel, published by a major house — the first printing was small and most copies were read and discarded.
Signed copies: $1,500–$4,000. Abbey signed at readings throughout his career.
Without jacket: $100–$250.
The Kirk Douglas connection gives the book crossover appeal — film collectors and Western enthusiasts seek it alongside Abbey’s core environmental-literary audience.