author
John Ludlum McConnel
1826–1862
A lawyer, soldier, and novelist of the American West, he wrote with the firsthand energy of someone who had actually lived on the frontier. His best-known work captures border life in the western states with a lively eye for character and place.
1 Audiobook
Western Characters; or, Types of Border Life in the Western States
by John Ludlum McConnel
About the author
Born in Illinois in 1826, John Ludlum McConnel grew up in Jacksonville and studied law at Transylvania Law School. Alongside his legal career, he served in the Mexican War with the 1st Illinois Volunteers, rising from first lieutenant to captain.
McConnel also turned his experience and observation into fiction and sketches of western life. He is best remembered for Western Characters; or, Types of Border Life in the Western States, a book that helped preserve colorful scenes and personalities from the nineteenth-century frontier.
He later practiced law, took part in public life, and continued to write before dying in Jacksonville in 1862. Though not widely known today, his work offers a vivid window into the language, landscapes, and social world of the early American West.