''Lord Grizzly'' is a 1954

biographical novel The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional account of a contemporary or historical person's life. Like other forms of biographical fiction, details are often trimmed or reimagined to meet the artistic needs of the fiction ...

Frederick Manfred Frederick Feikema Manfred (January 6, 1912 – September 7, 1994) was an American writer of Westerns, very much connected to his native region: the American Midwest, and the prairies of the West. He named the area where the borders of Minnesota, ...

. It was part of his ''Buckskin Man Tales'' series of five novels. The novel is the first one published under Frederick Manfred with his prior seven novels published under the name Feike Feikema. A screenplay was written by the husband of the author's daughter Freya, but no film was ever produced. The novel was a bestseller and it was a finalist for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

in 1955.

Plot

It describes the survival ordeal of a real

mountain man A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s (with a peak population in the early 1840s). They were instrumental in opening up ...

Hugh Glass Hugh Glass ( 1783 – 1833) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, trader, hunter and explorer. He is best known for his story of survival and forgiveness after being left for dead by companions when he was mauled by a grizzly bear. No rec ...

, who was attacked by a bear and abandoned in the wilderness by his companions (a young Jim Bridger and John S. Fitzpatrick), on the assumption he could not possibly live. Glass, with a broken leg and open wounds, had to crawl most of the way to

Fort Kiowa Fort Kiowa, officially Fort Lookout and also called Fort Brazeau/Brasseaux,Lotte Govaerts, "Real Stories behind The Revenant, Part III: Fort Kiowa", Rogers Archaeology Lab/ref> was a 19th-century fur trading post located on the Missouri River bet ...

to reach safety. When crawling back, Hugh could only dwell on revenge to the men who abandoned him.

History

Manfred previously wrote seven novels from 1944 to 1951, under the name Feike Feikema, and they received poor reception. Due to his expanding family and debt, the author started a poll at a street corner in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, in order to determine if changing his name would help improve the sale of his books. He legally changed his name to Frederick Manfred, but publishers continued to have no interest. Manfred asked a groceryman, milkman, and fuel seller in the neighborhood if he could pay them in a few months as a favor. Manfred returned to his writing and later wrote ''Lord Grizzly'' after doing much research. Part of Manfred's research for the novel was reading about life on the frontier during the 1880s, including reading around 60 books. Manfred created his own splint for his leg as Hugh Glass may have done after a bear broke Glass's leg during a fight. He inched along his backyard in

Bloomington, Minnesota Bloomington is a suburban city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, on the north bank of the Minnesota River, above its confluence with the Mississippi River, south of downtown Minneapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 89,987, ma ...

, as well as river bluffs, to act out what it would have been like for Glass. Since Glass only ate what he was able to catch without a weapon, Manfred ate ants, mice, grub worms, and grasshoppers. Manfred said that grasshoppers taste better than ants. Manfred journeyed across

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

along the Grand River to reach

Chamberlain, South Dakota Chamberlain is a city in Brule County, South Dakota, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Missouri River, at the dammed section of the Lake Francis Case, close to where it is crossed by Interstate 90. The population of Chambe ...

, where

once was. A representative from a book publisher was interested in the novel and sent it in for printing. A pocket book company later bought the rights for the novel to be republished in 1956. The novel is part of Manfred's ''

Buckskin Man Tales The ''Buckskin Man Tales'' is a series of five Western novels by American author Frederick Manfred which traces themes through the 19th-century Great Plains. Each novel is set in a different time and place on the American frontier, with most o ...

''.

Film

The husband of Manfred's daughter Freya, Tom Pope, produced a

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

for ''Lord Grizzly'', but studios were not interested at the time due to it being a western. When the film '' The Revenant'', based on the 2002 novel about Hugh Glass, was released, Manfred's daughter and her husband were sad that it was not based on ''Lord Grizzly''.

Reception

Madison Jones of ''The New York Times'' wrote in reference to the five ''Buckskin Man Tales'' novels, "But the very best of these novels, and surely a Western classic, is ''Lord Grizzly''." William Carlos Williams said, "I have never in my lifetime of reading about our West met with anything like it." ''Lord Grizzly'' was a bestseller, and a finalist for the

in 1955.

Plot

History

Film

Reception

References

Further reading