THE COMPLETE WESTERN STORIES OF ELMORE LEONARD
ORION BOOKS
UK PRICE £16.99
The title's a little misleading as it's not the complete western stories, but rather the short stories as Leonard was responsible for some classic western novels, Hombre and Last Stand at Sabre Wells among them. But this collection does contain all the western shorts he wrote for the pulps back in the day.
These days the author is best known for his excellent work in the crime genre but these tales, that show a budding talent, contain all of his trademark style. Snappy dialogue, sudden violence and characters that are deeply flawed.
If you can get the hardcover then that's the edition to go for as the inside jacket contains a great montage picture of the pulp mags that published Leonard's western fiction. The current UK paperback edition doesn't contain this but perhaps future editions will.
There are thirty short stories here - among them Three Ten to Yuma which was twice the inspiration for Hollywood movies - both films too are considered minor classics. Fans of the great man and writing students will find the introduction useful in that it takes the shape of an interview with the writer and reveals much of his early years trying to sell for the pulps.
"I was dissapointed by rejections from the better paying magazines, The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers. They felt my stories were too relentless and lacked lighter moments or comic relief. But I continued to write what pleased me while trying to improve my style."
The author did eventually reach his goal when in April of 1956 The Saturday Evening Post bought his story, Moment of Vengeance. This collection is well worth the price as since Leonard has become a crime superstar, his western work has been largely ignored. But these days there seems to be a new wave of interest in the western work of this particular master.
A treasury to be dipped into from time to time. Short stories will always take second place to novels with me, I prefer to get lost in the larger fictionscape, but I've enjoyed each and every title in this book and the book takes pride of place amongst my other short story collections. When you need a quick fix these stories are as addictive as it gets.
Excellent.
10 comments:
Yeah this collection is just great from start to finish. I picked up the HC when it came out. I was sold when I saw the words Elmore Leonard and Westerns. Actually some of the US HC do not have the pulp end papers either for some reason.
Easy to see his inspiration for writing crime coming from Detroit, but these are more of a stretch for a write in terms of atmosphere and setting.
Bruce - does the US hardcover have the same jacket image though?
Also worth noting that "The Captives" became THE TALL T, one of the famed Budd Boetticher/Randy Scott collaborations. Released on DVD in the U.S. earlier this month.
Missing from that collection is the 1957 short story 'Fury At 4-Turnings' republished as 'The Treasure Of Mungo's Landing'.
But, then I haven't got all the covers as in this version.
At the moment this book is beside my bed and I dip into, at random, before I go to sleep.
I have the US first edition (William Morrow, 2004, $27.95) and it does have the pulp-mag endpapers. Accept no other!
But the jacket, Gary, is a tastefully "antiqued" piece of western typography without the image of horse and rider.
As has been observed, a must for all western readers. It's also good to have Pattinase reminding us that Leonard was a city boy. In the mid 1990s, when I was trying to get "Chap O'Keefe" off the ground, lit agents said this was an impossible background for a western writer. One also said the genre was totally "indigenous" to the US. Seems you could be a "Hudson River Cowboy" but not a "River Thames" one. Must be something they get in city US mothers' milk, I guess.
One of my favorite collection of Western short stories. I miss the great author penning western novels and hope he writes another. It's been too long.
Beside the two short stories that Hollywood used in the 50s, I loved "Red Hell Hits Canyon Diablo" (great title) and the tender story called "The Tonto Woman" (which was made into a short film last year, but never got a chance to see it)
Great post, A.W.
Yeah Archavist I have the same version Chap has where the dust jacket looks antiqued, with the end papers.
Original Cover: http://images.contentreserve.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/%7B0B863B07-FECD-4A06-8257-7727AA9B5FD3%7DImg100.jpg
Bruce - that's a much better looking cover.
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