Читать книгу The Stage to Yellow Creek - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 3

In 1932 Frank E. Blackwell, editor of Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine, informed Carl Brandt, Frederick Faust’s New York literary agent, that Street & Smith was being hurt by the Great Depression, as were all magazine publishers, and that as an economy measure Faust’s rate (which had been at five cents a word since 1925) would have to be lowered to four cents a word. Faust, who was still living with his family in a Florentine villa in Italy, was displeased with this new policy at Street & Smith and urged his agent to seek other markets. It was while on a long trip to Egypt with his family that Faust wrote three short novels featuring a new character, Perry Woodstock. Carl Brandt sold all three of these Perry Woodstock short novels to Rogers Terrill, editor of Popular Publications’ new pulp magazine, Dime Western. “The Strange Ride of Perry Woodstock,” the first of these short novels, is collected in THE FUGITIVE’S MISSION: A WESTERN TRIO (Five Star Westerns, 1997). The second of them, titled by Faust “The Stage to Yellow Creek” and completed in June, 1932, appeared as “Guardian Guns” by Max Brand in Dime Western (8/33). Rogers Terrill, as was his editorial prerogative, in addition to changing the title prior to publication also altered the name of the principal character from Perry Woodstock to Tom Wells and deleted or rewrote certain sections of the text. For its appearance here, both the title and the text of “The Stage to Yellow Creek” have been restored according to Frederick Faust’s original typescript.