First published in 1935, Old Jules is unquestionably Mari Sandoz's masterpiece. This portrait of her pioneer father grew out of "the silent hours of listening behind the stove or the wood box, when it was assumed, of course, that I was asleep in bed. So it was that I heard the accounts of the hunts," Sandoz recalls. "Of the fights with the cattlemen and the sheepmen, of the tragic scarcity of women, when a man had to 'marry anything that got off the train,' of the droughts, the storms, the wind and isolation. But the most impressive stories were those told to me by Old Jules himself." "A realistic biography, a rare find. On putting down this book one feels that one has read the history of all pioneering." "An amazing portrait. Mari Sandoz has written the truth. And she has given it to us as if she had cut it, like a sod, from the live ground." "It is a magnificent job. The great virtue of Miss Sandoz's book is that you can see it happening. There is a good deal of America in Old Jules. It is, heaven knows, an enthralling story. But it is more than that, and much deeper. It is an experience in citizenship." "A magnificent job…An enthralling story."