Before 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 1800's, Before the West Was West explores the concrete, meaningful connections between different texts as well as the development of national ideologies and mythologies. Examining pre-nineteenth-century