Frank Waters — The Man Who Killed the Deer, Book of the Hopi, the Pike's Peak Trilogy & the Complete Taos Canon

By Josh Eldred · New Mexico Literacy Project · · ~7,400 words

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

In November 1942 Farrar & Rinehart published Frank Waters's seventh book in New York: a 274-page novel titled The Man Who Killed the Deer, set substantially at Taos Pueblo, narrating the cultural-protocol conflict of Martiniano, a Diné-and-Taos-Pueblo-raised young man returning to the Pueblo from an off-reservation Anglo boarding school. The book won the Commonwealth Club of California silver medal the same year. The 1950 Pocket Books mass-market paperback edition substantially expanded the readership. The novel has been continuously in print across nine decades and remains the foundational Anglo-perspective Taos-Pueblo novel of the twentieth century, sitting alongside Oliver La Farge's Laughing Boy (1929) and N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn (1968) in the principal Anglo-and-Native NM literary canon. This is one of approximately 25 books Waters published across his 65-year writing career, beginning with Fever Pitch (Liveright 1930) and concluding with the posthumous Of Time and Change (1998). The Pike's Peak mining trilogy of 1935-1940, the Hopi ethnography Book of the Hopi (Viking 1963), the contested anti-Earp biography The Earp Brothers of Tombstone (Clarkson Potter 1960), the Edith Warner / Manhattan Project novel The Woman at Otowi Crossing (Swallow 1966), and the substantial Manby biography To Possess the Land (Swallow 1973) round out the principal collector canon. From 1947 until his June 3 1995 death Waters lived at his Arroyo Seco home approximately seven miles north of Taos on the road toward Taos Ski Valley; the property survives today as the Frank Waters Foundation writer-and-artist residency. This is the collector's authority guide.

Biography: Colorado Springs to Arroyo Seco

Frank Joseph Waters (July 25, 1902 — June 3, 1995, closed pool) was born in Colorado Springs Colorado. He identified his father Frank Jonathan Waters as part Cheyenne — a family-told claim that is repeated in most biographical sources but that has not been independently documented through tribal enrollment records or genealogical proof, and that should be reported as a self-identification rather than a verified fact. His father died when Frank was approximately twelve years old (around 1914), an event Waters later cited as foundational to his lifelong sense of duality between Anglo and Indigenous worlds and to the substantial cross-cultural literary methodology that defined his work. The substantial maternal-grandfather inheritance came through Joseph Rogier (Waters's grandfather on his mother's side), a Colorado mining-frontier figure who operated gold-mining ventures around Cripple Creek and Pikes Peak — Rogier's mining career became the substantial autobiographical material for the Pike's Peak trilogy 1935-1940.

Waters attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs studying engineering 1922-1925 without taking a degree. He worked across the late 1920s as an oilfield laborer in Wyoming and then through the 1930s in California, Mexico, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, accumulating substantial wage-labor and travel experience that anchors the substantial cross-cultural-encounter narrative of his fiction. His first novel Fever Pitch (Liveright 1930) — later reissued in paperback under the title The Lizard Woman — emerged from substantial border-region observation and established his literary career.

In 1932 Waters made the Tombstone-and-Los Angeles trip that produced the controversial Earp manuscript material; through the 1930s he worked principally in Colorado on the Pike's Peak trilogy. Waters first visited Taos NM in the late 1920s through a Colorado-and-Southwest travel network that included the substantial Mabel Dodge Luhan circle (documented at /dh-lawrence-taos-kiowa-ranch-collecting) and made periodic returns through the 1930s-1940s. The Taos and northern NM landscape and the substantial Hispano-village-and-Pueblo cultural complex became the principal anchor of his mid-career fiction beginning with People of the Valley (Farrar & Rinehart 1941) and continuing through The Man Who Killed the Deer (Farrar & Rinehart 1942) and Masked Gods (UNM Press 1950).

Waters served in WWII as a civilian information specialist at the Office of Inter-American Affairs, Washington DC, working on Latin American hemispheric coordination 1942-1945. Returning to Colorado-and-NM after the war, he purchased his Arroyo Seco property in 1947. From 1947 until his June 3 1995 death he lived continuously at Arroyo Seco — approximately seven miles north of Taos on the road toward Taos Ski Valley, on what would become a roughly 15-acre property that the Frank Waters Foundation continues to operate today.

Four marriages, no children. Lois Moseley (married 1944, divorced 1946 — the war-and-immediate-postwar marriage); Jane "Janey" Somervell (married 1947, divorced 1955 — the early Arroyo Seco period); Rose Marie Woodell (married 1961, divorced 1965); Barbara A. Hayes (met 1970, married 1979 until Frank's 1995 death — the substantial late-career partnership and Foundation co-founder, herself a writer who died in 2019). Frank Waters is buried at Sierra Vista Cemetery, Taos; Barbara is buried adjacent.

The Pike's Peak Trilogy 1935-1940 — Liveright Three-Volume First-Edition Set

The Pike's Peak trilogy comprises three substantial autobiographical-historical novels published by Liveright Publishing Corporation in New York across 1935-1940: The Wild Earth's Nobility (Liveright 1935 first volume, the foundational pre-WWII Waters novel covering the substantial Colorado mining-frontier saga of Joseph Rogier and his Cripple Creek gold venture), Below Grass Roots (Liveright 1937 second volume, continuing the Rogier family saga across the substantial post-1900 transition period), and The Dust Within the Rock (Liveright 1940 third volume, completing the trilogy with the substantial early-twentieth-century close of the Rogier mining era). The trilogy is semi-autobiographical, anchored to Waters's actual maternal grandfather Joseph Rogier and his Cripple Creek / Pikes Peak gold-mining venture, and combines substantial Colorado mining-frontier historical narrative with substantial family-saga literary form across approximately 1,500 pages of total Liveright text.

In 1971 Waters substantially revised, condensed, and re-edited the three volumes into a single-volume edition: Pike's Peak: A Mining Saga (Sage Books / Swallow Press, Chicago, 1971 first edition, approximately 743 pages). The 1971 single-volume is NOT a simple reprint or aggregation — Waters substantially rewrote, deleted, restructured, and modernized the text, producing what scholars treat as a separate authoritative late-career revision rather than a derivative compilation. Contemporary scholarship is divided on whether the 1971 single-volume is preferable (Waters's own authoritative late-career revision) or the 1935-1940 originals are preferable (the foundational early-career texts as Liveright issued them when Waters was still establishing his literary methodology).

For serious collectors, both are legitimate Tier 1 collector targets. The 1935-1940 Liveright three-volume first-edition set with matched dust jackets is the principal Pike's Peak trophy — Liveright issued in modest print runs during the substantially Depression-era publishing market, and matched-jacket three-volume sets are genuinely scarce. Individual Liveright volumes (broken sets) are accessible in the lower respectable collectible value range per volume in fine condition with dust jacket; matched three-volume sets in fine condition with all jackets command four-figure collectible territory at specialist Western Americana auction. The 1971 Sage Books Pike's Peak first hardcover with original dust jacket is the second-tier trophy, more accessible because Sage Books issued substantial print runs — signed firsts trade respectable collectible value fine. The Western Heritage Wrangler Award 1972 honored the 1971 Sage Books revised edition specifically. Subsequent: Ohio University Press / Swallow Press reissued the three original 1935-1940 volumes separately starting in 2002 (Wild Earth's Nobility 2002, Below Grass Roots 2003, Dust Within the Rock 2004), restoring the Liveright text as Waters published it before his 1971 revision — these are accessible Tier 3 working acquisitions.

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Midas of the Rockies — The Stratton Biography 1937

Concurrent with the Pike's Peak trilogy Waters produced his first substantial nonfiction work, Midas of the Rockies: The Story of Stratton and Cripple Creek (Covici-Friede, New York, 1937 first edition). The book is the substantial biography of Winfield Scott Stratton (1848-1902), the Colorado Springs carpenter who struck gold at the Independence Lode on Battle Mountain near Cripple Creek 1891 and became one of the substantial late-nineteenth-century Colorado mining magnates. The 1937 Covici-Friede first edition with original cloth and dust jacket is the Tier 2 Waters early-nonfiction collector target — Covici-Friede print run was modest before the publisher's 1938 acquisition by Crown Publishers, and original Covici-Friede first editions with intact dust jackets are now scarce. The Midas of the Rockies content substantially supplements the Pike's Peak trilogy as the principal Waters Colorado-mining-frontier corpus. Subsequent: Sage Books 1949 reissue with Waters's revised text; University of Nebraska Press Bison Books paperback editions from the 1970s.

People of the Valley — 1941 Farrar & Rinehart Hispano-Village First Novel

People of the Valley (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1941 first edition) is Waters's foundational Hispano-village northern NM novel and the principal precursor to The Man Who Killed the Deer the following year. The novel is set principally at Mora NM in the Mora Valley north of Las Vegas NM, following the substantial Hispana protagonist Maria del Valle (a curandera figure who anchors the novel's substantial Hispano-village ethnographic-historical content) across multiple decades 1860s-1930s as Mora Valley Hispano village life encounters substantial twentieth-century federal-water-project-and-cultural-displacement pressure including the proposed and partially-built dam that would have flooded substantial Mora Valley pasture land.

POINTS OF ISSUE for the 1941 Farrar & Rinehart first edition: (1) Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. imprint on title page; (2) Copyright page reading "COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY FRANK WATERS" with "FIRST EDITION" designation; (3) Original Farrar & Rinehart cloth binding (typically green or blue cloth); (4) Original Farrar & Rinehart dust jacket with a few dollars price on front flap and substantial Hispano-village cover imagery. The 1941 Farrar & Rinehart first edition with original dust jacket is the Tier 1 Hispano-village-Waters collector target — fine signed copies trade the high three-figure to low four-figure range at specialist Western Americana auction; fine unsigned firsts with original jacket trade serious collector territory. Subsequent: Pocket Books paperback 1947; Swallow Press / Sage Books 1969 paperback reissue; Ohio University Press / Swallow Press contemporary trade-paperback editions.

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The Man Who Killed the Deer — 1942 Farrar & Rinehart First Edition

The Man Who Killed the Deer (Farrar & Rinehart, New York, 1942 first edition) is Frank Waters's principal novel and the foundational Anglo-Taos-Pueblo novel of the twentieth century. Originally drafted across approximately 1939-1941 in the substantial post-People-of-the-Valley creative period and published November 1942, the novel won the Commonwealth Club of California silver medal 1942. The Pocket Books mass-market paperback edition #694 in 1950 substantially expanded the readership and established the novel as the principal Anglo-American introduction to Taos Pueblo cultural life through the 1950s-1970s.

The novel follows Martiniano, a Taos Pueblo-raised young man with substantial Diné maternal heritage who returns from off-reservation Anglo boarding school and encounters substantial Pueblo cultural-protocol conflict, anchored by his killing of a deer outside official Pueblo hunting season — the substantial plot anchor that gives the novel its title. The novel substantially shaped mid-twentieth-century Anglo-American understanding of Taos Pueblo culture and is widely credited as one of the founding texts of the Anglo-Pueblo-encounter literary tradition that would later include Frank Waters's own Book of the Hopi 1963, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony 1977, and N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn 1968.

POINTS OF ISSUE for the genuine 1942 Farrar & Rinehart first edition: (1) Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. imprint on title page with their distinctive "F&R" device; (2) Copyright page reading "COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY FRANK WATERS" with "FIRST EDITION" designation and no subsequent printing notation; (3) Original Farrar & Rinehart cloth binding — typically tan, sand, or gold cloth with the distinctive red-orange topstain and dark spine lettering. The red-orange topstain is the principal point-of-issue confirmation distinguishing the 1942 first printing from the substantial subsequent Pocket Books and Swallow Press reissues; (4) Original Farrar & Rinehart dust jacket with a few dollars price on front flap, the substantial Taos Pueblo-iconography cover design with the deer motif, and the substantial author photograph and biographical paragraph on rear panel; (5) Original dedication to Tony Lujan of Taos Pueblo (Mabel Dodge Luhan's husband, documented at /dh-lawrence-taos-kiowa-ranch-collecting) — a substantial point-of-issue confirmation since later Swallow Press reissues carry different dedications (the post-1979 Swallow editions are dedicated to Barbara Hayes); (6) Pagination: [i-vi] vii-x [xi-xii], [1-2] 3-266 [267-274] pages.

Fine 1942 Farrar & Rinehart firsts with unclipped original dust jacket are now genuinely scarce — the book had a modest initial print run during the substantial WWII paper-rationing period before the 1950 Pocket Books mass-market paperback substantially expanded the readership. Subsequent editions: Pocket Books mass-market paperback 1950 (Pocket #694, the principal 1950s-1960s reading copy that established the novel's broad American readership); Pocket Books trade paperback editions through the 1970s; Swallow Press / Sage Books 1971 hardcover reissue (the substantial post-1971 Waters-Swallow relationship reissue with modest revisions to the text); Ohio University Press / Swallow Press contemporary trade paperback editions including the 2003 Athens Ohio reissue with substantial introduction by Thomas J. Lyon. The 1942 Farrar & Rinehart hardcover with original dust jacket and red-orange topstain and Tony Lujan dedication intact is the principal Tier 1 Waters collector trophy.

The Colorado 1946 — Rivers of America Series

The Colorado (Rinehart & Company, New York, 1946 first edition) is Waters's contribution to the substantial Rivers of America series published by Rinehart 1937-1974 — the foundational mid-twentieth-century American regional-river-history series eventually comprising approximately 65 volumes covering most major American rivers. The Waters volume covers the Colorado River from headwaters through the Grand Canyon and down to the Gulf of California, with substantial NM and Four Corners regional content covering the Rio Grande tributary system, Navajo Nation hydrology, and the substantial Hispano-and-Pueblo Rio Grande Valley irrigation history. The 1946 Rinehart Colorado first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 Waters collector target. Subsequent: numerous Rinehart printings through the 1950s-1960s; Holt Rinehart Winston paperback reissues; Ohio University Press / Swallow Press contemporary trade paperback editions.

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The Yogi of Cockroach Court 1947 — The Border Novel

The Yogi of Cockroach Court (Rinehart & Company, New York, 1947 first edition) is Waters's substantial U.S.-Mexico-borderlands novel drawing on his 1930s wage-labor experience in the border region. Set principally in a fictional Mexican border town, the novel anchors substantial Mesoamerican religious-and-philosophical content within a noir-adjacent border-life narrative. The 1947 Rinehart first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 Waters collector target — fine signed firsts trade respectable collectible value.

Masked Gods 1950 — UNM Press Navajo-and-Pueblo Ceremonialism

Masked Gods: Navaho and Pueblo Ceremonialism (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1950 first edition) is Waters's substantial Navaho-and-Pueblo ceremonial scholarly study and the principal Waters anthropological work preceding the Book of the Hopi by thirteen years. The 438-page book combines substantial Navaho sandpainting and ceremonial-cycle documentation with Pueblo kachina-and-dance-cycle documentation, drawing on substantial 1940s Waters fieldwork at Diné Bikéyah and across the Pueblo communities under substantial UNM Press editorial supervision.

POINTS OF ISSUE for the 1950 UNM Press first edition: (1) University of New Mexico Press imprint on title page; (2) Copyright page reading "COPYRIGHT 1950 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PRESS" with first-edition designation; (3) Original UNM Press cloth binding (typically dark blue or green cloth with gilt spine lettering); (4) Original UNM Press dust jacket with substantial Navaho-and-Pueblo iconography cover design. The 1950 UNM Press first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 Waters scholarly collector target — fine signed firsts trade serious collector territory given the modest 1950 UNM Press print run and the substantial Waters-UNM-Press relationship that the book established. Subsequent: UNM Press 1969 paperback reissue; Sage Books / Swallow Press 1984 trade paperback reissue with substantial new Waters introduction; Ohio University Press / Swallow Press contemporary trade paperback editions.

Contemporary readings of Masked Gods address its substantial pre-protocol-awareness Anglo-anthropological framing — the book was written when the contemporary Native cultural-protocol research-restriction framework that would emerge from the 1980s onward had not yet been institutionalized — alongside its formal-scholarly value as a substantial mid-twentieth-century Anglo-American ceremonial-documentation reference. Collectors and institutional libraries approach Masked Gods today with the same cultural-protocol sensitivity that applies to the broader Waters Pueblo-and-Hopi ethnographic corpus.

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The Earp Brothers of Tombstone 1960 — The Allie Earp Controversy

The Earp Brothers of Tombstone (Clarkson N. Potter, New York, 1960 first edition) is Frank Waters's most contested book and the foundational anti-Earp / revisionist Earp text — an exception to Waters's principal NM-and-Taos canon that nevertheless commands substantial collector demand from Tombstone, Old West, and Earp-controversy specialist collectors.

The book originated in Waters's 1932 interviews with Alvira "Allie" Sullivan Earp (1849-1947, widow of Virgil Earp), whom Waters met in Los Angeles and interviewed over approximately six months. Waters drafted a manuscript titled Tombstone Travesty drawing on Allie's recollections, on materials at the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society (now Arizona Historical Society), and on additional Tombstone old-timer interviews. When Waters showed Allie the draft manuscript, she was outraged at its substantially anti-Earp tone, called it "a pack of lies," reportedly threatened to shoot him, and withdrew cooperation. Josephine "Sadie" Marcus Earp (Wyatt Earp's widow) also opposed publication and reportedly threatened to sue Waters and his prospective publishers.

Waters delayed publication until 1960 — after both Allie (d. 1947) and Josephine (d. 1944) were dead and could not legally challenge the published text. The 1960 Clarkson Potter edition substantially launched the modern anti-Earp revisionist narrative that depicts Wyatt Earp and his brothers as opportunists, gamblers, and (in Waters's reading) substantially less heroic than the Walter Noble Burns Tombstone 1927 narrative or the Stuart Lake Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal 1931 narrative had popularized. The Waters revisionist reading substantially shaped subsequent twentieth-century Tombstone historiography including Glenn Boyer's contested I Married Wyatt Earp 1976 publication and the substantial late-twentieth-century Earp-revisionist literature.

Contemporary counter-critique is led by S. J. Reidhead's Travesty: The Story of Frank Waters and The Earp Brothers of Tombstone (Jingle Bob Press 2005), the result of nearly a decade tracking Waters's original manuscript and source notes — Reidhead argues that Waters fabricated material, substantially distorted Allie's recorded testimony, and that the 1960 published text bears limited resemblance to what Allie actually told Waters in 1932. Reidhead's book is itself partisan (defending the Earp legacy substantially against the Waters revisionist tradition) but is the principal scholarly anti-Waters Earp reference and is required reading for collectors of either side of the Earp controversy.

The 1960 Clarkson Potter Earp Brothers first hardcover with original dust jacket is a Tier 2 collector target distinct from Waters's NM-anchored canon — sought principally by Tombstone / Old West / Earp-controversy collectors rather than by New Mexico literary collectors. Fine signed 1960 firsts trade respectable collectible value at specialist Western Americana auction; fine unsigned firsts with original dust jacket trade the mid-range collectible zone. Subsequent: Bramhall House 1962 reprint; substantial paperback editions through the 1970s-1990s.

Book of the Hopi 1963 — The Viking First Edition and the Three-Front Controversy

Book of the Hopi (The Viking Press, New York, 1963 first edition) is Frank Waters's most-influential and most-contested nonfiction work. Waters worked at the Hopi Reservation 1960-1962 collaborating with Hopi translator Oswald "White Bear" Fredericks (Sun Clan, Hotevilla village, Third Mesa, 1905-1996) and approximately 30 Hopi elder informants across Hopi First Mesa, Second Mesa, and Third Mesa villages. The 391-page book presents Hopi cosmology, emergence narrative covering the prior three worlds and the substantial transition to the present Fourth World, the ceremonial calendar across the agricultural year (Wúwuchim, Soyál, Powamú, Niman, Snake-Antelope, Flute), and substantial Hopi-prophecy content that subsequently became foundational to twentieth-century counterculture-and-New-Age prophecy discourse.

POINTS OF ISSUE for the 1963 Viking Press first edition: (1) The Viking Press imprint on title page; (2) Copyright page reading "COPYRIGHT © 1963 BY FRANK WATERS AND OSWALD WHITE BEAR FREDERICKS" with first-edition designation (the substantial co-copyright with Fredericks is a defining feature distinguishing the 1963 Viking first from subsequent editions); (3) Original Viking Press decorated cloth binding (typically blue-gray cloth with embossed Hopi-iconography design on front board); (4) Original Viking Press dust jacket with substantial Hopi-iconography cover imagery; (5) The substantial photographs and illustrations including Fredericks paintings integrated through the text — Fredericks's substantial artistic-illustrator contribution to the volume is itself a substantial collector consideration.

Fine 1963 Viking Press Book of the Hopi first hardcover with original dust jacket is the principal Tier 1 collector target — fine signed firsts (signed by Waters only) trade respectable collectible value; fine firsts signed by both Waters AND Fredericks trade the high three-figure to low four-figure range at specialist Native American Studies and Western Americana auction. Subsequent: Ballantine paperback 1969 (the principal 1970s counterculture mass-market edition that substantially shaped Anglo-American Hopi-prophecy popular reception); Penguin Books trade paperback editions from the 1970s-1980s; substantial contemporary Penguin Modern Classics trade paperback editions still in print.

THE CONTROVERSY operates on three distinct fronts that collectors and institutional libraries should understand.

First front — Hopi Tribal authority objections. Hopi Tribal Council members and traditional Hopi elders subsequently said that substantial sacred ceremonial material was disclosed without proper authority. The 30 informants, while individually willing to participate, did not have institutional Hopi-Tribal-Council authority to release substantial sacred knowledge to Anglo publication. Some informants and their descendants disputed how their words were rendered in Fredericks-mediated translation. The substantial post-1980s Hopi Cultural Preservation Office position is that Book of the Hopi should not have been published in its 1963 form and substantially exemplifies the extractive ethnographic practice that the contemporary Hopi research-protocol regime is designed to prevent.

Second front — Vernon Masayesva and the Hopi research-restriction movement. Vernon Masayesva (Hopi Tribal Chairman 1989-1993, founder and executive director of Black Mesa Trust) is the principal contemporary public Hopi critic of unauthorized research and disclosure of Hopi religious knowledge. His public statements (in the Hopi tribal newspaper and at substantial Native-American-Studies conference venues) frame Book of the Hopi as an emblematic case of substantial extractive ethnographic publication that contemporary Hopi authority repudiates. The substantial Hopi push for research-protocol restrictions from the late 1980s onward — codified in the Hopi Tribal Council's 1994 ban on research without Cultural Preservation Office approval — responds substantially to the precedent Book of the Hopi set.

Third front — Anglo scholarly critique. Two principal scholarly works critique the Waters/Fredericks methodology. Armin W. Geertz The Invention of Prophecy: Continuity and Meaning in Hopi Indian Religion (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1994 first hardcover) argues that the "Hopi prophecies" widely circulated in counterculture-and-New-Age literature were substantially constructed by the Hopi Traditionalist Movement in collaboration with outside writers like Waters — not authoritative pre-contact Hopi tradition. Geertz traces the substantial twentieth-century construction of the Hopi-prophecy genre through the Traditionalist Movement leaders Dan Katchongva and Thomas Banyacya, both of whom were Waters/Fredericks informants. Peter M. Whiteley Rethinking Hopi Ethnography (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1998 first hardcover) critiques Waters for synthesizing substantial individual informant voices into a single composite "Hopi voice" that erased the actual individual perspectives and substantially misrepresents the polyvocal Hopi religious-and-cultural landscape. Whiteley's substantial Anthropological-and-Hopi-Studies-Institute methodology is the principal contemporary scholarly Hopi-ethnography standard.

Contemporary readers and collectors should approach Book of the Hopi alongside the substantial Hopi tribal critique (Masayesva, the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office position) and the substantial scholarly critique (Geertz 1994, Whiteley 1998) as part of the complete documentary-and-historiographical record. The book remains a substantial mid-twentieth-century document of Hopi-Anglo cultural-encounter literary methodology, but it is not authoritative contemporary Hopi tradition. NMLP intake handles Book of the Hopi material with the cultural-protocol care described in the NMLP intake section below.

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Late-Career Major Works 1966-1993

The Woman at Otowi Crossing (Alan Swallow, Denver, 1966 first edition) is Waters's substantial NM-anchored novel based on the historical Edith Warner (1893-1951) who operated a tearoom-and-residence at the Otowi Crossing bridge between Los Alamos and the substantial San Ildefonso Pueblo community 1928-1951. Warner's Otowi Crossing tearoom became the substantial 1943-1945 Manhattan Project scientist-and-Pueblo-community social-and-cultural meeting space — Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Niels Bohr, and dozens of other Los Alamos scientists ate at Warner's tearoom, and the substantial Edith-Warner-and-Tilano-Montoya relationship (Warner's lifelong friendship with Tilano Montoya, a San Ildefonso Pueblo elder who lived at the Otowi property until Warner's 1951 death) is one of the substantial Manhattan Project social-history anchors documented at /manhattan-project-los-alamos-books-collecting. The 1966 Swallow Woman at Otowi Crossing first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 Waters collector target — fine signed firsts trade respectable collectible value with substantial Manhattan Project collector crossover demand. The substantial Peggy Pond Church The House at Otowi Bridge (UNM Press 1959) provides the principal nonfiction Edith Warner biographical reference that Waters drew on.

Pumpkin Seed Point: Being Within the Hopi (Swallow Press, Chicago, 1969 first edition) is the substantial autobiographical follow-up to Book of the Hopi, documenting Waters's substantial 1960-1962 residency among Hopi families and his substantial Anglo-and-Hopi cultural-encounter reflection. The 1969 Swallow first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 collector target. Subsequent: Swallow Press / Sage Books paperback editions; Ohio University Press / Swallow Press contemporary trade paperback editions.

To Possess the Land: A Biography of Arthur Rochford Manby (Swallow Press, Chicago, 1973 first edition) is Waters's substantial Taos NM Anglo-land-grant biographical study of Arthur Rochford Manby (1859-1929), the substantially-contested Anglo land-speculator who acquired substantial Taos-area Hispano land grants through legally-contested methods through the 1880s-1920s and was found murdered (decapitated) in his Taos home in July 1929 in what remains an unsolved historical-mystery case. The 1973 Swallow Press To Possess the Land first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 Waters collector target with substantial Taos-history-collector crossover demand.

Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness (Sage Books / Swallow Press, Chicago, 1975 first edition) is Waters's substantial late-career esoteric work anchored to Mesoamerican religious tradition and substantially overlapping with the Pueblo-and-Hopi-religious framework of Book of the Hopi. The 1975 Sage Books first hardcover is the Tier 2 collector target.

Mountain Dialogues (Swallow Press, Athens OH, 1981 first edition) is Waters's substantial autobiographical-and-philosophical late-career essay collection — a Taos-and-Arroyo-Seco-based meditation on the substantial Anglo-and-Native cross-cultural-encounter methodology that anchored his career. The 1981 Swallow first hardcover with original dust jacket is an accessible Tier 2 collector target.

Flight from Fiesta (Rydal Press, Santa Fe, 1986) is Waters's small-press late novel issued by the substantial Santa Fe Rydal Press literary publisher. Brave Are My People: Indian Heroes Not Forgotten (Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, 1993 first edition) is Waters's late-career Native biographical collection with substantial Vine Deloria Jr. foreword — covering Pontiac, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Joseph, Cochise, and other major Native leaders. The 1993 Clear Light first hardcover with original dust jacket is the Tier 2 late-career collector target. Posthumous: Of Time and Change: A Memoir (MacMurray & Beck 1998) and A Frank Waters Reader: A Southwestern Life in Writing (Swallow Press 1999, edited by Thomas J. Lyon) complete the canon.

Frank Waters Foundation, Arroyo Seco Property, and Institutional Holdings

The Frank Waters Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1993 by Frank Waters and his fourth wife Barbara Hayes Waters at their Arroyo Seco NM property. The Foundation operates on the original approximately 15-acre Arroyo Seco property under the mission "Sheltering the Creative Spirit," principally through writer-and-artist residency programs that provide quiet workspace and substantial Frank-Waters-library access to working writers and visual artists. Mailing address: PO Box 1127, Arroyo Seco NM 87514. Barbara Hayes Waters served as Foundation director from Waters's 1995 death until her own 2019 death; the Foundation continues under successor leadership. The Foundation operates a small museum component documenting Waters's residency, with limited public access by appointment.

Frank Waters's principal scholarly papers are held at the UNM Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections in Albuquerque: Frank Waters Papers, MSS 332, containing typescripts, correspondence, research files, journals, and audio/video recordings — the principal Waters scholarly archive. The Frank Waters Pictorial Collection at UNM CSWR holds the substantial photographic archive separately. Additional Waters materials are held at the Wittliff Collections, Texas State University (San Marcos TX), which acquired substantial late-career and posthumous materials.

The authoritative descriptive bibliography for serious Waters collectors is Terence A. Tanner, Frank Waters: A Bibliography (Meyer Books, Glenwood IL, 1983) — the standard reference for points-of-issue and edition identification across the Waters canon through 1983. Subsequent bibliographic supplements have been issued by the Frank Waters Foundation and by Thomas J. Lyon in the substantial Waters scholarly literature.

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Awards Record

Confirmed Waters awards: Commonwealth Club of California silver medal 1942 for The Man Who Killed the Deer; Western Heritage Wrangler Award 1972 for Pike's Peak: A Mining Saga (the 1971 Sage Books one-volume edition); Rockefeller Foundation grant 1970; New Mexico Arts Commission Award for Achievement in Literature 1975; substantial honorary doctorates from the University of New Mexico, the University of Albuquerque, the University of Colorado, and Colorado State University across the 1970s-1980s.

Nobel Prize in Literature nominations: Waters was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times beginning in 1985, per Frank Waters Foundation records and substantial Foundation biographical material. The substantial Nobel-nomination claim should be reported carefully: being nominated for the Nobel does not require winning; nominations come from a wide pool of qualified nominators including professors of literature, presidents of writers' organizations, and previous Nobel laureates. Specific nomination years and nominators cannot be confirmed against the Swedish Academy's sealed 50-year archive (Nobel nomination records are sealed for 50 years from the year of nomination), but the Foundation has documented the substantial Nobel-nomination effort across the late 1980s and 1990s with substantial supporting correspondence and letters of nomination from substantial American literature professoriate.

Pulitzer Prize: Waters did NOT win or receive a confirmed nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. This is sometimes loosely claimed in popular biographical material but is not supported by Pulitzer board records — Waters does not appear among published Pulitzer fiction finalists. Collectors and researchers should not repeat the Pulitzer claim.

Six Identification Problems for Waters Collectors

Problem one: The Man Who Killed the Deer 1942 Farrar & Rinehart first vs 1971 Swallow Press reissue. Many AbeBooks and online-marketplace "first edition" listings are actually the 1971 Swallow / Sage Books reissue misrepresented as the 1942 Farrar & Rinehart first. Verification: Farrar & Rinehart imprint on title page (NOT Swallow Press / Sage Books); 1942 copyright; red-orange topstain on the original cloth binding; original 1942 dust jacket with a few dollars price; original dedication to Tony Lujan (not Barbara Hayes). The 1971 Swallow reissue has different cloth, no topstain, different dust jacket art, and the post-1979 Swallow editions carry the Barbara Hayes dedication.

Problem two: Pike's Peak — Liveright three-volume 1935-1940 first-edition set vs 1971 Sage Books one-volume revision. Both are legitimate Tier 1 collector targets but they are NOT the same text. The 1935-1940 Liveright originals are the foundational early-career texts; the 1971 Sage Books Pike's Peak: A Mining Saga is Waters's substantially-revised late-career single-volume revision. Collectors should verify: Liveright Publishing Corporation imprint and 1935/1937/1940 copyrights for the original three-volume set; Sage Books / Swallow Press imprint and 1971 copyright for the revised single-volume. Ohio University Press 2002-2004 reissues of the original three volumes are NOT the same as the Liveright firsts.

Problem three: Book of the Hopi 1963 Viking first vs Ballantine 1969 paperback vs Penguin trade paperback. The 1963 Viking Press first hardcover with the substantial co-copyright with Fredericks and the substantial blue-gray decorated cloth binding is the collector target. The 1969 Ballantine mass-market paperback is the principal 1970s reading copy and is accessible Tier 3 working acquisition. Penguin trade paperback editions are the contemporary reading copies. Signed copies: Waters signed extensively from approximately 1965 through 1995 so Waters-signed copies are well-documented; Fredericks-signed copies are rarer and require provenance documentation.

Problem four: The Earp Brothers of Tombstone 1960 Clarkson Potter first vs 1962 Bramhall House reprint. The 1960 Clarkson N. Potter first edition with the substantial first-edition designation on copyright page is the collector target. The 1962 Bramhall House reprint is a substantial earlier reprint that is not the first edition. Subsequent paperback editions through the 1970s-1990s are working copies.

Problem five: Signed Waters authentication. Waters signed extensively from approximately the late 1940s through 1995 at substantial Taos and Santa Fe events including Bookworks Albuquerque, La Fonda on the Plaza Santa Fe, the substantial Taos literary community readings, and the substantial Western Literature Association and Western Writers of America conferences. Waters used several signature variants across his career including the substantial "Frank Waters" full signature, the abbreviated "Frank W." signature, and rare "FW" initials. Authentication: Waters-signed copies should have substantial provenance documentation (event photographs, bookseller letters of authenticity, Foundation-verified inscriptions). The Frank Waters Foundation Arroyo Seco accepts substantial inscription-authentication inquiries.

Problem six: Masked Gods 1950 UNM Press first vs 1969 UNM Press paperback vs 1984 Sage Books revised paperback. The 1950 UNM Press first hardcover with original dust jacket and substantial Navaho-and-Pueblo iconography cover design is the collector target. The 1969 UNM Press paperback reissue is a working copy. The 1984 Sage Books / Swallow Press trade paperback with substantial new Waters introduction is a separate late-career edition that collectors of the substantial post-1980 Waters-Swallow relationship may target distinctly.

Have books like these? Call or text me at 702-496-4214 — I'll give you an honest assessment.

Three-Tier Collector Market

Tier 1 trophy (serious collector to four-figure territory): Signed Frank Waters The Man Who Killed the Deer Farrar & Rinehart 1942 first edition first-printing hardcover with original red-orange topstain and unclipped original dust jacket — fine signed copies trade four-figure collectible territory at specialist Western Americana auction (Heritage Auctions, William Reese Company, Swann Galleries); fine unsigned firsts with intact dust jacket the high three-figure to low four-figure range. The Wild Earth's Nobility (Liveright 1935) / Below Grass Roots (Liveright 1937) / Dust Within the Rock (Liveright 1940) three-volume matched-jacket first-edition set in fine condition — four-figure collectible territory for a complete matched set, respectable collectible value per individual volume in fine condition. Book of the Hopi Viking 1963 first edition first-printing signed by both Waters AND Oswald White Bear Fredericks — the high three-figure to low four-figure range fine. People of the Valley Farrar & Rinehart 1941 first edition with original dust jacket — serious collector territory fine. Signed Midas of the Rockies Covici-Friede 1937 first hardcover with original dust jacket. Signed Masked Gods UNM Press 1950 first hardcover with original dust jacket — serious collector territory.

Tier 2 collector targets (respectable collectible value): Pike's Peak: A Mining Saga Sage Books 1971 first hardcover signed fine — respectable collectible value. The Colorado Rinehart 1946 Rivers of America series first hardcover with original dust jacket — respectable collectible value. The Yogi of Cockroach Court Rinehart 1947 first hardcover — respectable collectible value. The Woman at Otowi Crossing Alan Swallow Publisher 1966 first hardcover with original dust jacket — respectable collectible value (substantial Manhattan Project collector crossover). Pumpkin Seed Point Swallow Press 1969 first — the mid-range collectible zone. To Possess the Land Swallow Press 1973 first hardcover — the mid-range collectible zone. Mexico Mystique Sage Books 1975 first — the mid-range collectible zone. Mountain Dialogues Swallow Press 1981 first — the mid-range collectible zone. The Earp Brothers of Tombstone Clarkson Potter 1960 first hardcover with original dust jacket — the mid-range to upper collectible zone. Brave Are My People Clear Light Publishers 1993 first — the mid-range collectible zone. Terence A. Tanner Frank Waters: A Bibliography Meyer Books 1983 first — the mid-range collectible zone (the substantial scholarly-bibliography reference).

Tier 3 working library (the mid-range collectible zone): Pocket Books and Ballantine mass-market paperback editions of The Man Who Killed the Deer (1950 onward) and Book of the Hopi (1969 onward); Ohio University Press / Swallow Press contemporary trade-paperback reissues across the entire canon; Penguin trade paperback Book of the Hopi editions; UNM Press paperback Masked Gods (1969 reissue); 1984 Sage Books / Swallow Press paperback Masked Gods; Sage Books / Swallow Press paperback People of the Valley editions; substantial Frank Waters scholarly secondary literature including Thomas J. Lyon Frank Waters (Twayne 1973), Robert Kostka Frank Waters: Selected Bibliographical Essays (1990), Charles L. Adams Frank Waters: A Retrospective Anthology (1993), the substantial Frank Waters Foundation Frank Waters Society newsletter and journal series.

PROVENANCE WARNINGS: Many AbeBooks "first edition" listings of The Man Who Killed the Deer are actually 1971 Swallow / Sage reissues misrepresented as 1942 firsts — verify Farrar & Rinehart imprint and the red-orange topstain. Book of the Hopi signed copies are sometimes faked — Waters signed extensively so his signature is well-documented, but Fredericks-signed copies are rarer and provenance documentation matters. Many 1942 Man Who Killed the Deer first-edition listings have facsimile dust jackets rather than the original Farrar & Rinehart jacket — the original jacket has the a few dollars price, the substantial deer-and-Pueblo cover design, and the rear-panel author photograph; facsimile jackets are usually higher-quality reproductions that lack the original printer-mark details and the substantial dust-jacket-spine browning that distinguishes 80-year-old originals from modern reproductions.

NMLP Intake Position

Frank Waters books arrive in NMLP donation pickups with substantial frequency given Waters's six-decade Taos NM residency and the substantial Taos Anglo reader demographic. Donor surface concentration: Taos Anglo professional retirees (substantial Frank Waters Foundation member and Arroyo Seco-community estate accumulation, often including signed Waters first editions); UNM English Department and Anthropology Department faculty estates (substantial Waters scholarly publication and signed first editions); Santa Fe Anglo professional retirees with substantial Mabel-Dodge-Luhan-circle-successor library accumulation; Mora Valley NM Hispano household donations (the substantial People of the Valley reader demographic); Hopi Reservation-adjacent and Diné-adjacent reader demographic (substantial contested-but-foundational Anglo-ethnographic publication library); Frank Waters Foundation Arroyo Seco docent-and-volunteer estates; substantial Manhattan Project / Los Alamos National Laboratory retiree estates (The Woman at Otowi Crossing 1966 connects Waters to the substantial Manhattan Project social-history collector demographic documented at /manhattan-project-los-alamos-books-collecting).

NMLP routes Tier 1 trophy items (signed Man Who Killed the Deer 1942 Farrar & Rinehart first, signed Book of the Hopi 1963 Viking first by both Waters and Fredericks, Liveright Pike's Peak three-volume 1935-1940 matched set, signed People of the Valley 1941 first, signed Masked Gods 1950 UNM first) to specialist Western Americana and Native American Literature dealers (Heritage Auctions Books and Manuscripts, William Reese Company New Haven CT, Swann Galleries Native American Literature sales, Frank Waters Foundation donation program when accepting). Tier 2 trade firsts route through SellBooksABQ standard hand-sort with Waters-collector and Western Literature Association member outreach. Tier 3 trade-paperback editions route extensively to APS Title I schools (NM literature curriculum includes substantial Waters content), UNM Native American Studies and English Department classroom-set acquisitions, Frank Waters Foundation institutional donations, regional research-library partnership network, Little Free Library stocking (Waters paperbacks are reliably wanted at Taos-area and northern NM LFL locations), and Bernalillo County Adult and Family Literacy Programs.

Cultural-protocol note on Book of the Hopi material: Book of the Hopi is substantially contested by contemporary Hopi Tribal Council and Hopi Cultural Preservation Office authority. Collectors and institutional recipients should be aware that contemporary Hopi authorities substantially reframe the book as a Fredericks-Waters collaborative work rather than authoritative Hopi tradition. NMLP intake handles Book of the Hopi material as standard literary-collection material when donated by Anglo-collector estates but does not route Book of the Hopi material to Hopi Tribal institutional channels (Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office) — those channels have substantial policy positions on the book that NMLP respects by not routing material to them. Learn how your donation supports New Mexico literacy. Free statewide pickup with no condition limit and no minimum quantity — schedule your pickup or text/call 702-496-4214.

Not sure what you have? Text me a photo at 702-496-4214 and I'll tell you what I see.

External References

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Cite This Guide

Eldred, J. (May 2026). Frank Waters — The Man Who Killed the Deer, Book of the Hopi, the Pike's Peak Trilogy & the Complete Taos Canon. New Mexico Literacy Project.

https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/frank-waters-man-who-killed-deer-collecting

Content is original research by Josh Eldred. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite with attribution.