Before the West Was West: Critical Essays on Pre-1800 American Frontiers LiteratureBefore the West Was West examines the extent to which scholars have engaged in depth with pre 1800 "western" texts and asks what we mean by "western" American literature in the first place and when that designation originated. Calling into question the implicit temporal boundaries of the "American West" in literature, a literature often viewed as having commenced only at the beginning of the 1800s, Before the West Was West explores the concrete,