''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Lewis Taylor, which was later made into a short-running

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

on ABC from September 1963 through March 1964, featuring Kurt Russell as Jaimie, Dan O'Herlihy as his father, "Doc" Sardius McPheeters, and Michael Witney and Charles Bronson as the wagon masters, Buck Coulter and Linc Murdock, respectively.

Plot introduction

Taylor's realistic novel—despite the Tom-Sawyer-like protagonist and narrator, it is aimed at an adult audience and contains episodes that would have kept it off any school list at the time—was published in 1958 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year. In it, the young Jaimie (spelled with two "i"s) accompanies a

wagon train ''Wagon Train'' is an American Western series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957–1962), and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and became number one in the Nielsen ratings ...

headed from

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

after the 1849

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

Plot summary

The novel alternates between Jaimie describing his journey by wagon train and commentary by his father, a Scottish doctor with an effervescent personality whose judgment is often clouded by his weakness for gambling and strong drink. The novel contains, in graphic detail, some intense Native American customs, especially

rite of passage A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite ...

Publishing history

* Doubleday & Company. 1st edition. 1958. . (may also be: .) * Pocket. 1960. Paperback. . * Arbor House. 1985. Paperback. . * Main Street Books. Paperback reissue edition. 544 pages. December 1, 1992. . * Chivers Audio Books. Audio cassette. October 1993. .

External links

"The Guns of Diablo", 1964, Charles Bronson, Kirk Russell, Susan Oliver
IMDB entry for ''Jaimie McPheeters'' television series

Photos of the first edition of The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
Historical novels 1958 American novels Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning works Doubleday (publisher) books American novels adapted into television shows {{1950s-hist-novel-stub