An entertaining read on an interesting topic. Some reviewers complained that the author jumped around, but I did not find this to be the case. He did an initial chapter where he basically laid out the historically known facts. After that, each chapter dealt either with an aspect of the pony express legend, ( I.e. who was the first rider) or an individual or group's description of it ( E.G Mark, Twain, Richard Burton.) ( )

Orphans were not preferred, and many other stories about the Pony Express are also myths. This is a good, well researched book on the topic. Somewhat tedious and sometimes repetitive, but worth reading nevertheless. ( )

It takes a truly talented author to turn historical facts into a fascinating page-turner. Christopher Corbett is a master at his craft. This book should be required reading for educational classes studying 19th century U.S History. ( )

We know this much is true: In 1860, the business trio of Russell, Majors, & Waddell set about to revolutionize overland mail delivery in the United States. Backed by a congressional blessing (but not by congressional money), they sought to deliver mail to the citizens of California faster than ever before. Normally, mail took anywhere from one to six months to go from the East Coast to the West Coast, but the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company strove to cut that down to ten days. From the moment the first rider struck from St. Joseph, Missouri, the Pony Express became steep in folklore and American myth. Christopher Corbett’s Orphans Preferred tries to wrangle truth from the mouth of history to get to the most accurate picture of the Express he can.

One of the problems of undertaking this history, as Corbett immediately points out, is that it is nearly impossible to get true historical data on the Express. None of the business’s accounting papers have been found and the most reliable histories of the express were written 50 to 75 years after the Pony Express stopped operations in 1861. The route comprised 184 stations where wiry young men would quickly dismount and remount a new horse, transferring the mail satchel with them. After a few horses, a new rider was entrusted the mail and off he went. For eighteen months, this was the fastest way to message to folks out in California. Once the transcontinental telegraph and railroads were completed, there was no need for the Pony Express.

All in all, this book was informative, catchy, and fun. Corbett readily accepts the burden of fleshing out a thin historical narrative, and so interweaves stories from Buffalo Bill Cody (an early rider for the Express), Mark Twain, and Sir Richard Burton to give a better picture of how life in the Wild West was. There are lot of times he simply states that there is no real answer for the questions he is asking, and that’s just fine. In an era filled with romantic stories and tall tales of daring-do, it’s probably best that there’s also a little mystery to the men who raced against technological progress. A rich and entertaining book. ( )

It is a grave defect in modern publishing that there is no viable niche for a piece of writing 40-50 pages in length. Which would be about what the verifiable facts about the Pony Express add up to (the records of the enterprise having disappeared, probably destroyed to baffle creditors). In order to stretch his material to minimal book length, Christopher Cooper has to throw in lengthy accounts of liars who claimed to have ridden for the Pony Express, hack writers who promoted their lies, students who exposed the lies, plot summaries of movies about the Pony Express, none of which bore any relation to any actual facts, and so on and on. (Anybody with a liberal arts degree, unless he or she was exceptionally diligent, will recognize what Cooper went through, having sat up all night grinding out term papers in similar fashion.)

For all that, Cooper is a good writer and a diligent researcher, and the material is fascinating -- what there is of it.