William F. Cody was an American scout, showman, and autobiographical storyteller better known as Buffalo Bill. His accounts of frontier experience and his famous Wild West performances helped make him an international celebrity. The Life of Buffalo Bill presents the adventurous public identity that connected his work on the plains with a growing popular appetite for Western stories.

Cody's early working life included military service, scouting, and hunting bison to supply railroad workers. Stage appearances and the touring enterprise Buffalo Bill's Wild West transformed elements of these experiences into large public spectacles. His company traveled across the United States and Europe, bringing riding, marksmanship, and staged frontier episodes to audiences far from the places represented.

His autobiographical writing belongs to the same world of personal recollection and public performance. It offers vivid narrative, but individual claims should be considered alongside independent historical evidence. Cody's career also forms part of the history of westward expansion and the ways Indigenous peoples were represented to paying audiences. Reading his work with that context reveals both a remarkable act of self-presentation and the making of a durable, often simplified image of the American West.