The Untamed An Unabridged Large Print Max Brand Western: The Complete & Unabridged Original Classic Western [Large Print]

By Max Brand

Book Overview

A classic western by Max Brand, a master of the genre.

This premium quality large print edition contains the unabridged original classic version of Max Brand's first western novel, The Untamed in a large 7.44"x9.69" format, printed on heavyweight 60# bright white paper, with a fully laminated full-color cover featuring an original design. Also included is a brief original introductory author biography discussing the life and work of Max Brand.

The Untamed...

... He started up from his chair, white faced, his hands high above his head, staring at the apparition of Whistling Dan, who stood with two revolvers covering the posse. Every man was on his feet instantly, with arms straining stiffly up. The muzzles of revolvers are like the eyes of some portraits. No matter from what angle you look at them, they seem directed straight at you. And every cowpuncher in the room was sure that he was the main object of Dan's aim. ...

Max Brand's first western introduced "Whistling Dan Barry," an influential character who not only appeared in subsequent novels by Brand but became one of the archetypes for the western genre so successful in popular reading, film and television for decades. Roaming the west with his half-wild stallion "Satan" and the wolf dog "Black Bart," Dan's eyes blazed yellow at the prospect of a fight or the approach of danger, his guns ever at the ready.

Max Brand brought a more literary and serious approach to the western than did many others who worked in the genre, and while The Untamed includes all those elements a reader expects in a western--gunplay, posses, horseback chases--in the characteristic action-packed style of Brand's many stories, it is also a well-plotted and thoughtful novel. While the modern reader will almost certainly recognize certain cliches of the western genre, it is worth noting that many of them became cliches long after Max Brand introduced them, as a result of countless others imitating Brand's originals.

Max Brand...

"Max Brand" is the best-known of many pen names used by Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944), an incredibly prolific American author known today primarily for his many western novels and as the creator of the cowboy-hero "Destry" and the character "Dr. Kildare." Born in Seattle, his parents both died while Faust was still a boy and he grew up with relatives in central California, eventually working for a time as a cowhand on a ranch in the San Joaquin Valley.

By the 1920s Faust was writing extensively for pulp magazines under multiple pen names, sometimes being the actual author of two serials and a short novel published in a single issue. By 1934 Faust was writing for more upscale magazines and had moved his family to a villa in Italy, but in 1938 he returned with his family to the United States and settled in Hollywood, working as a screenwriter for a number of film studios. He reaped a fortune from the "Dr. Kildare" films, and became one of the highest paid writers of the era. Despite his wealth and success, Faust used his real name only on his now-forgotten poetry, which he considered his true literary achievement.

One of the most prolific authors of all time, he wrote more than 500 novels and an almost equal number of shorter stories. Working at a breakneck pace, sometimes writing as much as 12,000 words in a weekend, most of his work was published with little or no editing or revision by either Faust or his publishers.

Despite his age and heart condition, Faust managed to talk his way into an assignment as a front line war correspondent and was mortally wounded by shrapnel while with American troops in Italy in 1944.

• Format: Paperback
• Large Print: Yes
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1502865378
• ISBN13: 9781502865373
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.4" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

The Untamed

I first read this book when I was a young boy and was much impressed. I never forgot it. I recently read it again (I'm now 75) and thought that the story was still entertaining but not like it had been when I was younger. I would recommend it to young readers

The Untamed - Enjoyable, Enigmatic, Classic Western

Whistlin' Dan Berry is undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic characters in Western fiction. With uncanny abilities he controls a wild stallion, appropriately named Satan, and a ferocious wolf dog, Black Bart. Naive and easy going, Berry proves absolutely unforgiving when physically assaulted by a feared, vicious outlaw, Jim Silent. Seemingly without any moderating emotions, Whistlin' Dan is relentless in his vengeful search for Silent and his outlaw gang. The Untamed (1919), Max Brand's first western novel, was radically different from earlier, more realistic, classic works like James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie, Owen Wister's The Virginian, and Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage. In The Untamed we readers learn little about the protagonist; his origin, his remarkable skills, and his animal-like instincts, remain shadowed in mystery. We also have little idea where the story takes place. Brand's geography is vaguely familiar and yet is clearly fictional, even mythical. Harsh, unforgiving deserts and mountains markedly shape the character and code of his fictional ranchers, heroes, and outlaws. There is an accepted definition of honor, right, and wrong, but fundamentally, all must find ways to survive in this rugged environment. Max Brand's westerns may not meet the criteria of great literature, but The Untamed is certainly good pulp fiction. Brand's enigmatic Whistlin' Dan Berry warrants your acquaintance. My hard cover edition of The Untamed is a publication of the University of Nebraska Press. It includes a short, interesting introduction by William A. Bloodworth, Jr. He is the author of Max Brand (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993), a biographical examination of Brand's fascinating career. Max Brand, the best known pseudonym of Frederick Faust, created more than 300 western novels.

Great escapism

Yes, this book set the style and standard for the Western genre for years to come. Modern book/films such as Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove series and Clint Eastward's Unforgiven have quite rightly deconstructed and deflated the 'epic western hero' that "The Untamed" created. It is impossible in this day and age to take "Whistlin' Dan Barry" and the other larger than life gunslingers in this novel seriously. The wild Dan Barry, Master of wolves and horses - not to mention impossibly fast with a gun and strong as a panther - it does make you smile. That does not mean that it is not a great read however. I loved the book, even though I am simultaneausly reading a Larry McMurtry offering - an amusing contrast, but Brand does not suffer too much in the contrast. Max Brand's writing is actually very good, he is a master of action and continuity - superior by far in my view to Zane Grey - that other prolofic writer in this field. Read it - its great.The price was right too - I read the free online version from litrix.com

One of the classics of the genre

Frederick Faust (a.k.a. Max Brand and eighteen other psuedonyms) wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote -- 30 million plus words in his career -- and just about everything he turned out is worth reading. And "The Untamed" is one of his best. Forget "The Virginian" and Zane Grey's pokey novels, "The Untamed" is the fictionalized west that we know and love, where men and women were larger than life and strode across a fantasy world of death, lawlessness, and strange beauty. After reading this novel, pick any other Faust/Brand title and give it a try: I guarantee you that you won't find a dud.

The Beginning of the Western Revolution

More than any other western novel, even more than the better known "Riders of the Purple Sage" and "The Virginian", "The Untamed" created the modern conception of the west as a violent world of fairy tale. Brand crafts an elegant melodrama of exaggerated life through his sociopathic hero, Whistlin' Dan Barry, and infuses his story with the violence and passion of Greek tragedy. This synthesis created the twentieth-century image of the old west. Brand, who would write over 300 novels in his career, writes with an ease and power that makes every page a joy.