I, Tom Horn

No, it is a fictional autobiography written in Tom Horn's first-person voice by Western novelist Will Henry. The novel was originally published in 1975 and uses historical events as the basis for its imagined memoir. [University of Nebraska Press](https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803272835/i-tom-horn/)

Tom Horn lived from 1860 to 1903 and worked as a cavalry scout, tracker, Pinkerton, and stock detective in the American West. The novel follows those real occupations while adding fictional interior thoughts and dialogue. [University of Nebraska Press](https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803272835/i-tom-horn/)

The story centers on the question of whether Tom Horn killed fourteen-year-old Willie Nickell or was framed for the crime. That historical controversy gives the fictional autobiography its main legal and moral tension. [University of Nebraska Press](https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803272835/i-tom-horn/)

Will Henry was one of the pen names used by American writer Henry Wilson Allen, who also published Westerns as Clay Fisher. The book combines Allen's historical research with the first-person voice of Tom Horn. [University of Nebraska Press](https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803272835/i-tom-horn/)