John Thomas Edson (17 February 1928 – 17 July 2014) was an English author of 137 Westerns, escapism adventure, and police-procedural novels. He lived near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, from the 1950s onwards, and retired from writing due to ill-health in 2005.
Biography He was born in February 1928 near the border of Derbyshire in a small mining village, Whitwell.Ray Merlock,"Edson, J(ohn) T(homas)" in Twentieth Century Western Writers, edited by Geoff Sadler. Chicago and London, St. James Press, 1991, , p.203-5 Both his grandfathers and assorted uncles were coalminers His paternal family was native to Whitwell, his paternal grandfather Herbert Edson, being born in the hamlet of Steetley, near Whitwell. His maternal grandfather, Robert Gill, was born in Heeley, Yorkshire.
His parents married at Whitwell Parish Church of St. Lawrence on 5 April 1926, and John Thomas (J.T.) Edson (junior) was their first child. In June 1928 the Edson family suffered a sudden bereavement when 7-year-old John Vincent Edson, the young son of John Edson's namesake cousin John R Edson, died suddenly; a month later, John Thomas Edson himself also died in July 1928, leaving Eliza a 23-year-old widow with a six-month-old baby son. Eliza Edson remarried in 1946 when J.T. Edson was 18 years old.
J. T. Edson joined the British Army at the age of 18 years in 1946. Edson served in the army for 12 years as a Dog Trainer. He saw active service in Korea and Africa.
Cooped up in barracks for long periods, he read books by escapist writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert McCraig, Nelson C. Nye and Edgar Wallace. He also watched films starring John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn and his all-time favourite, Audie Murphy. His first published work was "Hints on Self-Preservation when attacked by a War Dog" in the Osnabrück camp magazine Shufti in 1947. Acquiring a typewriter in the early 1950s and putting it to good use while posted to Hong Kong, by the time of his discharge he had written 10 Westerns, an early version of Bunduki and the first of the short detective-type stories starring Waco.
Edson decided to leave the Army on his marriage and as he and his wife began to raise their six children, he sought to turn his hobby of writing into an income to support his family. He won second prize (with Trail Boss, first published in 1961) in the Western division of a literary competition run by Brown & Watson Ltd, which led to the publication of 46 novels with them, becoming a major source of revenue for the company. He sometimes needed additional income and also worked as a postman, and was the proprietor of a fish and chip shop. He branched out as a writer and wrote five series of short stories (Dan Hollick, Dog Handler) for the Victor boys' paper, and wrote the box captions for comic strips, which instilled discipline and the ability to convey maximum information with minimum words.
His writing career forged ahead when he joined Corgi Books in the late 1960s, which gave Edson exposure through a major publishing house, as well as the opportunity to branch out from Westerns into the Rockabye County, the science-fiction hero BundukiBradley Mengel, Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction: An Encyclopedia from Able Team to Z-Comm. McFarland, 2009 (p.26-7). . and other series.
At his most prolific, Edson wrote a new novel every six to eight weeks.
Later life Edson openly claimed, though rather tongue-in-cheek, that he wrote for the money. In an article for Time magazine in February 1999, he declared that unlike such authors as Louis L'Amour, he had "no desire to have lived in the Wild West, and I've never even been on a horse. I've seen those things and they look highly dangerous at both ends and bloody uncomfortable in the middle."
This remoteness from the West placed Edson in company with the popular Western author Zane Grey, who was a middle-aged east coast dentist. Similarly, Western author George G. Gilman, real name Terry Harknett, was born and bred in Essex, England.
+ Summary Event Timespan Ole Devil 1835–1837 Civil War 1861–1865 Floating Outfit 1866 – early 1880s Waco series late 1870s – late 1890s Calamity Jane Late 1860s – c.1880 Waxahachie Smith 1880s – 1890s Alvin Fog c.1918 – c. late 1920s Rockabye County 1960s – 1970s Bunduki 1960s – 1970s
His style J. T. Edson delighted in using real-life and fictional characters as crossover "guest stars" in his works and often used the relatives/descendants of his characters to create spin-off series. He backs the existence of these guest stars with frequent references to "fictionist-genealogist" Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton family.
His first hero, Ole Devil, is the maternal uncle of his Civil War & Floating Outfit hero, Dusty Fog. Fog in turn is the first cousin of gunfighter John Wesley Hardin. Lon Ysabel's cousin is "Bad Bill" Longley. Alvin Fog was Dusty's grandson; Rockabye County hero Bradford Counter was Mark Counter's great-grandson, and Bunduki was Bradford Counter's cousin and another great-grandson of Mark Counter, his mater Dawn Drummond-Clayton being the great-granddaughter of Tarzan through their son, Jack Clayton, aka Korak the Killer. Alvin Fog shares his series with Edgar Wallace characters J G Reeder and the Three Just Men. A variety of real (Wyatt Earp) and fictional (Matt Dillon) characters pop up in every series.
The huge procession of characters from book to book ensured that the first few pages of an Edson book always ended up looking alike, with descriptions of a small, insignificant looking Dusty Fog, who suddenly appeared to become a giant when villains he faced down felt the full force of his personality, the tall and Greek-god handsome Mark Counter, the baby-faced but highly dangerous, black dressed, rifle and bowie knife toting Ysabel Kid, and various other characters. Western critic Ray Merlock has lauded Edson for his characterisation of these three heroes.
Edson's books avoided explicit sex and graphic violence; they also advocated right-wing political views. Edson also avoiding having "losers" and anti-heroes as protagonists. Merlock stated: "Edson's strength as a Western writer is that he loves his main characters...His villains are stereotyped, his plots usually familiar, but his emphasis on his three, rather pleasant leading characters is the basis for his understandable popularity".
Regular characters
Dusty Fog Dusty (Dustine Edward Marsden Fog) is the principal protagonist in most of the Floating Outfit stories and Civil War stories. Short"I'm five-foot five and a half myself", The Rio Hondo Kid p 89 but strongly built for his height, Dusty is exceptionally fast with his twin Colts and commonly considered the fastest gun in Texas, a skilled rifle shot though usually preferring a Winchester carbine as being more suited to his small stature, and unequalled in hand-to-hand combat either unarmed or with a sabre. Dusty adapts his talents to the situation whether as head of a cattle drive (e.g. in Trail Boss), light cavalry commander (e.g. in Kill Dusty Fog!), lawman (e.g. in The Town Tamers), wagon train boss (Wagons to Backsight) or spy (e.g. as assistant to Belle Boyd in The Rebel Spy), and his wide education from a variety of teachers renders him a shrewd solver of mysteries and fraud (one example is given in "A Wife for Dusty Fog" in The Small Texan). Although well able to fight in the normal manner for a Western saloon brawl, Dusty is extensively trained in judo and karate by Tommy Okasi. Dusty is a capable cattleman and knows few equals as a horseman, successfully breaking and later using as his regular mount a paint stallion that crippled Ole Devil when he tried to ride it. In the earlier part of his career Dusty uses twin Model 1860 Army Colts but acquires a pair of Civilian Model P Colts in The Peacemakers, finding them much to his liking and conferring a slight improvement in his draw speed and marksmanship.
Mark Counter Mark is Dusty's right-hand man in many Floating Outfit stories and the principal protagonist in a few (e.g. Rangeland Hercules). Much taller and heavier than Dusty (about six feet three inches and 210 pounds), Mark is seldom acknowledged as even having an equal for size and strength, although Dusty may be slightly stronger pound for pound."Was Dusty as tall as Mark I'd bet on him having even more heft and muscle", The Peacemakers p 139 Rarely some third party is mentioned as having been capable of equalling one of Mark's feats of strength (one instance is in The Fortune Hunters, but was sabotaged and led to the crippling of the other man). Lacking Dusty's knowledge of Oriental martial arts, Mark adopts a more conventional albeit comparatively modern boxing style taught to him by Sailor Sam, who worked as Mark's father's cook, and is only ever beaten when badly outnumbered. Mark is almost as fast with his Colts as is Dusty, preferring Cavalry Peacemakers when these become available as replacements for his earlier Army Colts. Mark is invariably stated to be an even better cattleman than Dusty although deferring to him on cattle drives, and also an expert with either rifle or sabre although he concedes Dusty's superiority with either weapon. Also a shrewd lawman, Mark generally works as Dusty's deputy on such occasions. Since Mark is tall, strong and handsome (and a leader of Confederate Army fashions during the Civil War) Mark is often mistaken for Dusty by those who know the latter only by his very strong reputation, which confusion the Floating Outfit occasionally use to their advantage when it helps for Dusty to remain incognito for a while. Also an exceptional horseman, Mark rides a "huge" bloodbay stallion throughout his career with the Floating Outfit. Mark's good looks and Southern charm bring him many romantic conquests although he is principled enough to steer clear of innocents and is strongly averse to married women.
The Ysabel Kid