"This is bullfighting from the inside, the way it looks to the people who make it a profession, and not even Ernest Hemingway at his best has ever done a better job of getting the whole thing on paper."

—New York Times Book Review

"The Brave Bulls has long been considered a classic of Southwestern literature. The writing is intensely visual and precise, the narrative stirring, and the characters both quirky and engaging. . . . Tom Lea writes with a painter's eye and a deep affection for Mexican culture."

—James Magnuson, Director, James A. Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas at Austin

One of Texas's true renaissance men, Tom Lea (1907-2001) was already a noted artist, muralist, and book illustrator when he published his first novel, The Brave Bulls, in 1949. This suspenseful story of bullfighting in Mexico, elegantly illustrated by the author, spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was hailed by Time magazine as the best first novel of the year. It also won the Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, went through numerous reprints and translations, and became a 1951 movie starring Mel Ferrer and Anthony Quinn.