8 h 17 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 17 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Beyond the Appalachian Mountains, a hunter follows the promise of Kentucky into a life of danger, endurance, and loss.
In Daniel Boone, John S. C. Abbott follows a Pennsylvania farm boy who prefers the woods to the schoolroom. Boone learns to track animals and move quietly through forest. Then trader John Finley tells him of Kentucky: rolling land, cane thickets, salt springs, and herds of buffalo and deer. The country beyond the mountains draws him west.
Long hunts in unmapped forest lead toward the road through Cumberland Gap and the watchful life of Boonesborough. Families seek a place to settle, but danger shadows their hopes. Abbott tells Boone’s life as a story of courage and endurance, shaped by a nineteenth-century moral outlook. It is an absorbing frontier biography, though not a balanced account of Native American perspectives.
What you’ll discover
- A boy of the woods Meet the young Boone as he learns the skills that shape his life.
- Kentucky through Finley’s eyes Discover the trader’s vivid account of a country that draws Boone toward the wilderness.
- A road through mountains Follow the trail through Cumberland Gap, where hopes of settlement meet the demands of wilderness.
- Life behind fort walls Enter Boonesborough, where settlers farm near the walls and hunt in small groups.
- Courage with a cost Explore a life in which endurance and achievement stand beside bitter personal losses.
Who will love it
Readers who love true adventure, frontier history, wilderness survival and quiet courage will enjoy this biography. It also suits those curious about Kentucky's settlement, forts and log cabins.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A quiet man enters the wilderness
- The woods teach Boone self-reliance
- Calm becomes a means of survival
- Grief does not end his purpose
- A road makes settlement possible
- Captivity calls for patience and cunning
- Caution goes unheard at Blue Licks
- His word matters more than property
- Steady character holds the story together
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- Large print hardcover
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Daniel Boone in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Daniel Boone
by John S. C. Abbott · 1872
A quiet hunter walks out of North Carolina into the Kentucky wilderness and stays to open it for thousands.
Challenging2–5 hours to read16 languages
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In short
What would it take to walk into a land no settler had seen, with a rifle, an axe and a family waiting at home? Daniel Boone did exactly that, and kept doing it for fifty years.
Daniel Boone at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 35 min3 h 40 min fast, 5 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 65,600 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1872by John S. C. Abbott
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
The continent waits behind the mountains
Abbott opens far from Boone's cradle, with Columbus sighting a light at sea in 1492. The point is scale. Europeans knew the coast long before they knew the land behind it.
The early record is a string of failures. De Soto marched through the south in search of gold and left cruelty behind him. Raleigh's colony at Roanoke vanished. Jamestown suffered disease and hunger, but Captain John Smith kept it together. Trouble with the native peoples runs through it all, and Abbott says plainly that unprincipled whites drove much of the violence.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 13 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1872
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 25 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Abbott, John S. C. Daniel Boone. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-boone.
Abbott, J. S. C. (2026). Daniel Boone. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-boone (Original work published 1872)
Abbott, John S. C. Daniel Boone. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-boone.
@book{abbott2026daniel,
author = {Abbott, John S. C.},
title = {Daniel Boone},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-boone},
note = {First published 1872}
}
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What is Daniel Boone by John S. C. Abbott about?
It is a biography of the frontiersman Daniel Boone, following him from childhood in Pennsylvania through his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, his captivity, his loss of land and his final years in Missouri.
Who was Daniel Boone and what did he do?
Boone was an American hunter, scout and settler. He explored Kentucky, cut the Wilderness Road, founded the fort at Boonesborough, defended it in 1778 and later moved to Missouri.
Is Daniel Boone by Abbott a true story?
Yes, it is a nonfiction biography written in the nineteenth century. Abbott draws on Boone's autobiography and on accounts by Peck, Audubon and others, so some anecdotes come from tradition rather than record.
The author
John S. C. Abbott
1805–1877 · American historian and author
John Stevens Cabot Abbott (1805–1877) was an American historian, pastor, and author. He was born in Brunswick, Maine, and died in Fair Haven, Connecticut. He served as a Congregational minister in Massachusetts. His historical books included History of Frederick the Second, Called Frederick the Great (1871) and Daniel Boone (1872).
More by John S. C. Abbott
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