The Earthbreakers is a western adventure by Ernest Haycox. Haycox was an American writer of Western fiction. Excerpt: "Loose soil and pine stems whipped by; overhead the steady hiss of the wind kept on. The horses footed steadily forward from one rocky ridge to another, down a long slope and across the insecure ford of a swollen little river near its junction with the big river; and somewhere in the noisy day he heard a man's weak voice cry out. Fifty feet distant a horse stood on a rocky flat with its rump to the wind. A few cows stood under the shelter of a tree and a small tent, ripped from its pegs, slapped back and forth beneath a branch to which its peak had been tied. Riding in that direction he discovered Alpheus Stricklin's head stuck out from a cocoon of soaked blankets."

Western fans today may not recognize the name Ernest Haycox (1899–1950), but they know his work. John Ford turned one of his stories into the iconic film Stagecoach, and the whole Western literary genre still follows conventions that Haycox deftly mastered and reshaped. In this new book about Haycox’s literary career, Richard W. Etulain tells the engrossing story of his rise through the ranks of popular magazine and serial fiction to become one of the Western’s most successful creators. After graduating from the University of Oregon in 1923 with a degree in journalism, Haycox began his quest to break into New York’s pulp magazine scene, submitting dozens of stories before he began to make a living from his writing. By the end of the 1920s he had become a top writer for Western Story, Short Stories, and Adventure, among other popular weeklies and monthlies. Ernest Haycox and the Western traces Haycox’s path from rank beginner, to crack pulp writer, to regular contributor to Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post. Etulain shows how Haycox experimented with techniques to deepen and broaden his Westerns, creating more introspective protagonists (Hamlet heroes), introducing new types of heroines (the brunette vixen, the blonde Puritan), and weaving greater historical realism into his plots. After reaching the height of success with his best-selling Custer novel, Bugles in the Afternoon (1944), Haycox moved away from the financially rewarding but artistically constricting Western formula—only to achieve his final coup with The Earthbreakers, a historical novel about the end of the Oregon Trail, published posthumously in 1952. Reconstructing the career of a popular literary giant, Ernest Haycox and the Western restores Haycox to his rightful place in the history of Western literature.

Amongst the early settlers crossing the Rockies to found communities in Oregon, is Rice Burnett, who searches for fulfillment, unaware of where it may be found

A sweeping story of the men and women who won the West--from the acclaimed author of over 40 novels, including The Border Trumpet. With elemental appetites, untamed passions, and indomitable courage, the frontier pioneers endured storms, scorching heat, perilous mountain crossings, and the discomforts of wagon train life to gamble with their destinies in a virgin land.

Publishing and critical history of best-selling world fiction writers; critical evaluations of selected titles.

This book presents information on Ernest Haycox's life and critical commentary on his writings.

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