Edge the Loner was the first book in a successful adult western novel series written by Terry Harknett under the pen name George G. Gilman. Edge is a civil war veteran named Josiah Hedges, the son of a Mexican father and a Swedish mother.
After returning home from the war and finding his home burned to the ground and his crippled younger brother Jamie slaughtered, Hedges seeks revenge on the perpetrators, acquiring the name 'Edge' in the process. Further violent adventures stretch over a series of sixty-one books in total.
Gilman was an English writer who churned out adult westerns for the vibrant paperback market during the 1970s and 1980s. There were also other UK writers producing this brand of all action westerns, usually with series characters with colorful titles such as Breed, Apache, Jubal Cade and The Undertaker. Collectively they became known as the Piccadilly Cowboys.
The Edge series is still popular today and the later books in the series, which only had the one print run, are fetching high prices with collectors.[1]
Gilman was responsible for several other western series but remains chiefly known for the Edge and Adam Steele books. Several times he combined his two best known characters in the two of a kind series which starred both Edge and Steele. In 2010 it was announced that Gilman, working with western writer, Gary Dobbs will see the Edge books brought back into print as eBooks. The project will kick off when The Loner is published in 2010 by Solstice Publishing.