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Behind him the wind moved down from High Lonesome, but only the wind blew
along the trails, south to the border,south toMexico .
About the Author
"I think of myself in the oral tradition of a troubadour, a village
taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to
be remembered as a storyteller.A good storyteller."
IT IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world recreated in
his novels as Louis DearbornL'Amour . Not only could he physically fill the
boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the
land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong
devotion to historical research combined to give Mr.L'Amour the unique
knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the
American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr.L'Amour could trace his own family in North
America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward,
"always on the frontier." As a boy growing up inJamestown,North Dakota , he
absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the
story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr.L'Amour
left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including
seaman, lumberjack,elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, assessment miner,
and officer on tank destroyers during World War II. During his "yondering"
days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea,
was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in theMojave Desert . He won
fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a
journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare
books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.
Mr.L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After
developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories
written for fiction magazines, Mr.L'Amour published his first full-length
novel,Hondo, in theUnited States in 1953. Every one of his more than 100 books
is in print; there are nearly 230 million copies of his books in print
worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary
history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than
forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and
television movies.
His hardcover bestsellers includeThe Lonesome Gods,The Walking Drum(his
twelfth-century historical novel)JubalSackett, Last of the Breed, andThe
Haunted Mesa. His memoir,Education of a Wandering Man, was a leading
bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of manyL'Amour
stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio Publishing.
The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr.L'Amour became the
first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United
States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the
Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.
LouisL'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children,
Beau and Angelique, carry theL'Amour tradition forward with new books written
by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam well into the
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nineties among them, fourHopalong Cassidy novels:The Rustlers of West Fork,The
Trail to Seven Pines, The Riders of High Rock,andTrouble Shooter.
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