Riders of the Silences
Unabridged Large Print Edition
by Max Brand
A classic western by Max Brand, a master of the genre.
Riders of the Silences…
… The Great West, prior to the century’s turn, abounded in legend. Stories were told of fabled gunmen whose bullets always magically found their mark, of mighty stallions whose tireless gallop rivaled the speed of the wind, of glorious women whose beauty stunned mind and heart. But nowhere in the vast spread of the mountain-desert country was there a greater legend told than the story of Red Pierre and the phantom gunfighter, McGurk.
These two men of the wilderness, so unalike, of widely differing backgrounds, had in common a single trait: each was unbeatable. Fate brought them clashing together, thunder to thunder, lightning to lightning. They were destined to meet at the crossroads of a long, long trail … a trail which began in the northern wastes of Canada and led, finally, to a deadly confrontation in the mountains of the Far West…
This premium quality large print edition is not a machine-scanned text or reproduced “blowup” of an old version. It contains the unabridged original classic version of Max Brand’s western novel, Riders of the Silences, freshly edited and formatted by human editors, in a large 7.44″x9.69″ format, printed on heavyweight bright white paper, with a fully laminated full-color cover featuring an original design. Also included is a brief introductory author biography discussing the life and work of Max Brand.
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, contributing over a million words a year under multiple pen names to the weekly Western Story Magazine alone, 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. At one point Warner Brothers was paying him $3,000 a week (an average worker’s yearly income at the time), he reaped a fortune from MGM’s Dr. Kildare film adaptions, and Faust 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, most first published, in the style of the times, as magazine serializations for magazines, and an almost equal number of shorter stories. His total literary output has been estimated at between 25,000,000 and 30,000,000 words. Faust worked at a breakneck pace, sometimes writing as much as 12,000 words in a weekend, and 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 soldiers in Italy in 1944.
Product details
Publisher: Apex Publications, Independently published (April 30, 2024)
Language: English
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8324375904
Item Weight: 1.29 pounds
Dimensions: 7.44 x 0.58 x 9.69 inches
List Price: $14.97
