Western Reid, Mayne: The Scalp Hunters v1 20 mar 2009

[mtravellerh]

REID, Thomas Mayne (1818-83) Irish writer of boys' stories, born in Ballyroney, County Down. In 1840 he emigrated to New Orleans, settled as a journalist in Philadelphia (1843), and served in the US army during the Mexican war (1847), where he was severely wounded. Returning to Britain in 1849, he settled down to a literary life in London. His vigorous style and hairbreadth escapes delighted his readers. Among his books, many of which were popular in translation in Poland and Russia, were The Rifle Rangers (1850), Scalp Hunters (1851), Boy Hunters (1853), War Trail (1851), Boy Tar (1859), and Headless Horseman (1866). He went back to New York in 1867 and founded the Onward Magazine, but returned to England in 1870.

This is very much in the cowboys and Indians genre, and there can be no doubt that the author knew exactly what he was writing about, and had lived through similar experiences.

On writing this book Reid had the general public in mind. It was one of his first. It was not until later that he adopted a more peaceful style and wrote for a boy readership, saying that in those books there was not a single passage that a boy could not read aloud to his mother or his sister. This book falls just outside that scope.(www.athelstane.co.uk)

Quite pulpy action stuff!

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