10 westerns you must read - seven

In order that my ten books selected give a broad overview of the western genre it is essential that I pick one of the books by the group of writers known as The Piccadilly Cowboys. They were a select bunch of writers churning out adult themed westerns during the seventies and eighties.

The most famous of all the books produced by these guys was George Gilman's Edge series but the Edge bookS have been looked on in great detail elsewhere on the Archive.

In fact - as with the Wyatt Earp movie choice - I'm going to cheat here and not pick any one title but tell you a little about the various series that were published during these times when every shop had a western section. Track down any of the titles and you are guaranteed a good, enjoyable, fast paced read.

Edge of course is the most well known of all the series but the author George Gilman also penned another series called Adam Steele which was equally successful. The author also did other series such as The Undertaker and one or two of the Jubal Cade's as well as The Apache series, but none could match the success of Edge and Steele who set the benchmark for all western series of the period.


All of the novels were the literary answer to the Italian school of super violent westerns with as much black humour as gun smoke and most were fast enjoyable reads.

Breed was a particular favourite of mind during my teenage years, coming only second to Edge as far as I was concerned. Breed was, you've guessed it, a half breed who was as useful with a knife as he was a gun.
The books sold by the truck load in the UK and yet only one or two of the characters are well know in America.



All are worth checking out - these are the British answer to the pulp westerns that were so popular in years gone by. It's well worth checking out second hand shops and online auctions for some of these titles. But before you get the collecting bug be warned, some of the books can fetch crazy prices - it is not unusual for the later Edge titles to go for triple figures.

Check out the PICCADILLY COWBOYS WEB SITE