(1928- )
Until one remembers that Billy the Kid was from Brooklyn and Sergio Leone from Rome, and that The Great Train Robbery (1903) was filmed in the wilds of New Jersey, it might come as a surprise to realize that one of the all-time most popular writers of westerns was born in Nottinghamshire, England, and that quite a few of J. T. (John Thomas) Edson’s many cowboy stories were written during the years he ran a fish-and-chips shop in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. In his productivity and devotion to the classic pulp genres like the western and the jungle adventure, Edson was a throwback to the pulp writers of yore, still producing his traditional fare on the eve of the 21st century. Edson seems particularly comparable to a distant figure like Edgar Rice burroughs, and not merely because Edson wrote some semi-official sequels to Burroughs’s famous Tarzan series. The two writers shared an early history of uncreative labors prior to their writing careers (Edson was a postman, a stone quarry hauler, and a dog trainer), a prolific storytelling ability (Edson published nearly a topic a month many years), a simple but compelling prose style, a longstanding public appeal that transcended fad and fashion, and a far higher standing with ordinary readers than with critics.
Edson’s Bunduki topics, apparently sanctioned by the Burroughs estate, dealt with the ostensible adopted son of Tarzan and continued the lordly jungle adventures in an exciting manner that would have made the American master proud. As the series developed (with four titles in all: Bunduki, Bun-duki and Dawn, Sacrifice of the Quaggi Gods, and Fearless Master of the Jungle), Edson referenced other gods from the pulp adventure pantheon, Lester dent’s Doc Savage and H. Rider haggard’s Allen Quatermain, producing a more straightforward version of the sort of reflexive tribute to the past done by Philip Jose Farmer. Edson wrote other assorted genre works through the years, including one hard-boiled mystery, Blonde Genius (written in collaboration with Peter Clawson).
But far and away Edson’s preferred form of fiction, and the genre for which he created more than 120 novels, is the western. Edson began writing during his years as a dog trainer in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps from 1948 to 1959 (his second tour of duty after several years in the Rifle Brigade). His assignments took him to Asia, Africa, and various military outposts in Europe, but the setting that captured the much-traveled Edson’s attention when he began banging out his first fiction (on a typewriter bought after a big bingo win) was the American frontier. His first published novel, Trail Boss, was submitted as an entry to a contest held by the British developer Brown & Watson, and it won. Edson quickly followed the prizewinner with other western tales and all were quickly published (in the United Kingdom only for a time, but eventually in the United States with Berkley and other houses).
Establishing long-term relationships with Brown & Watson and later with Corgi, another British developer, Edson wrote novels that appeared at an average rate of one every six to eight weeks for the next 20 years. Most of the topics belonged to one or another continuing series, with certain cross-pollinations among certain of the series as well. The most popular of these amalgamations was The Floating Outfit, with a cast of stylized gun-slingers—the Ysabel Kid, Mark Counter, Lon Dal-ton—who brought to mind a more violent version of the B-movie western series characters of the 1930s. In addition, Edson would include some of the actual legends of the era, such as Calamity Jane, letting the mythic figures of reality intermingle with those of his own creation. Researching place and time, Edson tried his best to make the novels true to their historical setting, and his experiences in the army ensured the authenticity of his writing on armaments and animals. But the source of Edson’s popularity through the years was the ability to spin a great yarn and hold readers entranced to the last page.
Works
- Apache Rampage (1963);
- Arizona Ranger (1962);
- Back to the Bloody Border (1970);
- Bad Bunch, The (1968);
- Bad Hombre (1971);
- Banduki (1975);
- Banduki and Dawn (1976);
- Beguinage (1978);
- Beguinage Is Dead (1978);
- Big Hunt, The (1967);
- Blonde Genius (with Peter Clawson), (1973);
- Bloody Border, The (1969);
- Buffalo Are Coming (1985);
- Bull Whip Breed, The (1965);
- Calamity Spells Trouble (1968);
- Calamity, Mark and Belle (1986);
- Cap Fog Meet Mr. J. G. Reeder (1977);
- Code of Dusty Fog (1989);
- Cold Deck, Hot Lead (1969);
- Colt and the Sabre, The (1967);
- Comanche (1967);
- Cow Thieves, The (1965);
- Cuchilo (1969);
- Cut One, They All Bleed (1983);
- Deputies, The (1988);
- Devil Gun (166);
- Drifter, The (1963);
- Fast Gun, The (1967);
- Fastest Gun in Texas (1963);
- Fearless Master of the Universe (1980);
- Floating Outfit, The (1967);
- Fortune Hunters, The (1965); 44
- Calibre Man (1969);
- From Hide and Horn (1969);
- Gentle Giant, The (1979);
- Go Back to Hell (1972);
- Goodnight Dream (1969);
- Guns in the Night (1966);
- Gunsmoke Thunder (1963);
- Gun Wizard (1963);
- Half Breed, The (1963);
- Hard Riders (1962);
- Hell in the Palo Duro (1972);
- Hide and Horn Saloon (1984);
- Hide and Tallow Man (1974);
- Hooded Riders, The (1968);
- Horse Called Magollon (1971);
- J. T.’s Hundredth (1979);
- J. T.’s Ladies (1980);
- J. T.’s Ladies Ride Again (1989);
- Justice of Company Z, The (1981);
- Kill Dusty Fog (1970);
- Lawmen of Rockabye County (1989);
- Law of the Gun, The (1966);
- Making of a Lawman, The (1968);
- Man from Texas, The (1965);
- Mark Counter’s Kin (1990);
- Matter of Honor (1991);
- McGraw’s Inheritance (1968);
- No Finger on the Trigger (1987);
- Old Moccasins on the Trail (1981);
- Ole Devil and the Caplocks (1976);
- Ole Devil and the Mule Train (1976);
- Ole Devil at San Jacinto (1977);
- Ole Devil’s Hands and Feet (1984);
- Owlhoot, The (1970);
- Peacemakers, The (1965);
- Point of Contact (1970);
- Professional Killers, The (1968);
- Quarter Second Draw, The (1969);
- Quest for Bowie’s Blade (1974);
- Quiet Town (1962);
- Rangeland Hercules (1968);
- Rapido Clint (1980);
- Rapido Clint Strikes Back (1990);
- Rebel Spy, The (1968);
- Rebel Vengeance (1987);
- Remittance Kid, The (1978);
- Renegade (1978);
- Return of Rapido Clint and Mr. J. G. Reeder (1984);
- Return to Backsight (1966);
- Rio Guns (1962);
- Rio Hondo Kid (1963);
- Rio Hondo War, The (1964);
- Run for the Border (1971);
- Rushers, The (1964);
- Sacrifice of the Quagga Gods (1976);
- Set Afoot (1977);
- Set Texas Back on Her Feet (1973);
- Sagebrush Sleuth (1962);
- Sheriff of Rockabye County (1988);
- Sidewinder (1967);
- Sixteen Dollar Shooter (1974);
- Slaughter’s Way (1965);
- Slip Gun (1971);
- Small Texan, The (1969);
- South Will Rise Again, The (1972);
- Terror Valley (1967);
- Texan, The (1962);
- To Arms, To Arms in Dixie (1972);
- Town Called Yellowdog (1966);
- Town Tamers, The (1969);
- Trail Boss (1961);
- Trigger Fast (1964);
- Trouble Busters, The (1965);
- Troubled Range (1965);
- Trouble Trail (1965);
- Two Miles to the Border (1972);
- Under the Stars and Bars (1970);
- Viridian’s Trail (1978);
- Waco’s Debt (1962);
- Wagons to Backsight (1964);
- Wanted: Belle Starr (1986);
- Whip and the War Lance (1979);
- White Indian (1981);
- White Stallion, Red Mare (1970);
- Wildcats, The (1965);
- You’re Texas Ranger, Alvin Fog (1979);
- You’re in Command Now, Mr. Fog (1973);
- Young Ole Devil (1975);
- Ysabel Kid, The (1962)
