Max Brand - Collected Works of Max Brand

The Collected Works of

MAX BRAND

(1892-1944)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2018

Version 1

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The Collected Works of

MAX BRAND

By Delphi Classics, 2018

Collected Works of Max Brand

First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2018.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 111 4

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Late nineteenth century Seattle, Washington where Frederick Schiller Faust (Max Brand) was born in 1892

San Joaquin Valley, California Brand moved here at an early age. In his youth he undertook gruelling labour as a cowhand, which may have partly caused the chronic heart disease that troubled him in later years.

Max Brands Dan Barry Series began in 1919, with the publication of The Untamed (1919) as a serial in All-Story Magazine . Barry is a mysterious figure, who roams the American West on his black stallion, Satan, with the faithful wolf-dog Black Bart in tow. Together, the trio are known as the untamed. His habit of whistling tunes to himself as he rides has earned him the nickname Whistling Dan. This is only one of the many features that earn him an almost uncanny reputation he never shoots to kill, he comes and goes as mysteriously as a ghost and has an almost unearthly yellow gleam in his eye when he becomes angry. All of this is compounded by the mystery of his origins his antecedents are unknown, as Dan was taken in by a cattle handler after being found wandering in the desert. Dan forms a quasi-romantic attachment with his guardians daughter Kate, which is developed as the series progresses.

The first novel in the series centres on Dans pursuit of a gang of outlaws headed by Jim Silent. A sequel, The Night Horseman (1920), appeared the year after, followed by two further sequels, The Seventh Man (1921) and Dan Barrys Daughter (1923). The latter is not a direct sequel, but rather the story of how Barrys daughter Joan continues his legacy.

In the Barry novels, Brand began an incredibly prolific and highly influential career as a writer of Westerns, transforming the genre from a mixture of romance and historical fiction to an almost mythic depiction of the old West as a land of heroes, outlaws and villains, who stalked a dreamlike landscape. In doing so, he was influenced by the classical education he received under the eye of his uncle, Thomas Downey, a high school principal that took Brand in after he was orphaned.

Cover of All-Story Weekly, which first printed the story in 1918-1919

George OBrien, who portrayed Dan Barry in the 1931 film Fair Warning, based on The Untamed

E VEN TO A high-flying bird this was a country to be passed over quickly. It was burned and brown, littered with fragments of rock, whether vast or small, as if the refuse were tossed here after the making of the world. A passing shower drenched the bald knobs of a range of granite hills and the slant morning sun set the wet rocks aflame with light. In a short time the hills lost their halo and resumed their brown. The moisture evaporated. The sun rose higher and looked sternly across the desert as if he searched for any remaining life which still struggled for existence under his burning course.

And he found life. Hardy cattle moved singly or in small groups and browsed on the withered bunch grass. Summer scorched them, winter humped their backs with cold and arched up their bellies with famine, but they were a breed schooled through generations for this fight against nature. In this junk-shop of the world, rattlesnakes were rulers of the soil. Overhead the buzzards, ominous black specks pendant against the white-hot sky, ruled the air.

It seemed impossible that human beings could live in this rock- wilderness. If so, they must be to other men what the lean, hardy cattle of the hills are to the corn-fed stabled beeves of the States.

Over the shoulder of a hill came a whistling which might have been attributed to the wind, had not this day been deathly calm. It was fit music for such a scene, for it seemed neither of heaven nor earth, but the soul of the great god Pan come back to earth to charm those nameless rocks with his wild, sweet piping. It changed to harmonious phrases loosely connected. Such might be the exultant improvisations of a master violinist.