The Shootist
Spitfire Edition
Glendon Swarthout
Elliott & Thompson Ltd, London
First Edition

Cover Photo of Glendon Swarthout courtesy of Miles Hood Swarthout.

Signed by Miles Hood Swarthout.

From the Book Jacket:
John Bernard Books is the only surviving top gunfighter in a vanishing American West. He rides into El Paso in the year 1901, on the day of Queen Victoria's demise, there to be told by a doctor that he has a terminal illness. As word spreads that the famous assassin has reached the end, an assortment of vultures gather to feast upon his corpse-among them a gambler, a rustler, an undertaker, and old love, a reporter; even a boy. Books outwits them all, however, by selecting the where, when, and manner of his death.

The climactic gunfight is one of the finest examples of muscular prose ever written. Now remembered only as John Wayne's last movie, The Shootist deserves to be re-discovered as a masterful example of a now rather overlooked genre, and can be compared to other classic western novels such as Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident.

About the Author, From the Book Jacket:
Glendon Swarthout became a journalist after leaving his job writing advert copy for Cadillac and Dow Chemicals. His short stories began appearing in the Saturday Evening Post and he achieved success when his novel, They Came to Cordura, became a bestseller and won a Hollywood film contract. He was 39 years old. The Shootist won the Spur Award for the Western Novel of the Year and he continued to produce novels and short stories until his death, in Arizona, in 1992. His sardonic humanity shines through all his prose, much influenced by his love of the work by Somerset Maugham and Joyce Cary.

The cover of this paperback features a photo of the author, Glendon Swarthout, as shown here. Soft bound. 158 pages.