Walt Coburn
Walt Coburn (1889-1971) was an American writer of Westerns. Coburn was born in White Sulphur Springs, Montana Territory, the son of Robert Coburn Senior, the founder of the noted Circle C Ranch.[1]
Coburn served in the military in the First World War. He later spent time as a cowboy and a surveyor, before becoming a full-time writer in the 1920s.
Western author
Coburn began his career with Western stories in general fiction pulp magazines such as Adventure and Argosy.[2] Later Coburn moved on to pulps specializing in Westerns, including Western Story Magazine, Lariat Story Magazine, Ace-High Western and Frontier Stories.[3] He often wrote for the Fiction House pulp magazines Dime Western and Star Western who promoted Coburn as "the Cowboy Author".[4]
Coburn was enormously prolific; Flanagan states Coburn wrote almost two million words of fiction over a thirty year period.[1] Coburn was so popular that eventually, two pulp magazines - Walt Coburn’s Western Magazine and Walt Coburn’s Action Novels were issued, consisting mainly of reprints of Coburn's work.[2]
After the pulps ended in the 1950s, Coburn switched his focus to writing paperback originals.[2]
Coburn was a devout Christian. Coburn claimed, in his posthumously published autobiography Western Word Wrangler (1973) that God had chosen him to spread the Christian message through his fiction.[1]
Bibliography
Novels
- The Ringtailed Rannyhans (1927)
- Mavericks (1929)
- Barb wire (1931)
- Walt Coburn's action novels; four western novels (1931)
- Law Rides the Range (1935)
- Sky-Pilot Cowboy (1937)
- Pardners of the Dim Trails (1951) (vt: Tough Texan)
- The Way of a Texan (1953)
- Drift Fence (1953)
- The Burnt Ranch (1954)
- Gun Grudge (1955)
- Wet Cattle (1955) (vt: Violent Maverick)
- The Square Shooter (1956)
- Border Jumper (1956)
- The Night Branders (1956)
- One Step Ahead of the Posse (1956)
- Cayuse (1956)
- Stirrup High (1957)
- Fear Branded (1957)
- Horsethief Trail (1957)
- Spiderweb Ridge (1958)
- Beyond the Wild Missouri (1958)
- Buffalo Run (1958) (vt: Fast Gun)
- Free Rangers (1959)
- Dark and Bloody Ground (1960)
- Guns Blaze on Spiderweb Range (1961)
- Invitation to a Hanging (1963)
- Ramrod (1963)
- Branded (1963)
- Sons of Gunfighters (1963)
- The Kansas Killers (1966)
- Feud Valley (1969)
- The Renegade (1969)
- La Jornada (1971)
- Sleeper's Mark (1990)
- Showdown Mesa (1992)
- Coffin ranch : a western trio (1998; edited by Jon Tuska).
Non-fiction
- Pioneer Cattleman in Montana: Story of the Circle C Ranch (1968)
- Western Word Wrangler (1973)
References
- 1 2 3 John D. Flanagan, "Coburn, Walt", in Twentieth Century Western Writers, edited by Geoff Sadler. St. James Press, 1991, ISBN 0-912289-98-8 , (pp. 129-34)
- 1 2 3 Lee Server, "Coburn, Walt" in Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. Facts on File, 2002 ISBN 978-0-8160-4578-5 (pp. 65-66)
- ↑ Jon Tuska, The Western Story: A Chronological Treasury, University of Nebraska Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8032-9439-4 (p.xxviii).
- ↑ Jon Tuska, Star Western, Gramercy Books, 1995, ISBN 0-517-14688-6 (p.132).