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Cabinet 16: Westerns: Guys & Guns

Tex Barton, The Avenger. Sydney: Hastall Publishing, [1945]. Pulp Literature Special Collections PR9610.B37 A93

Luke Bragg, Colt Conversation. Sydney: Transport Publishing, [195-?]. Pulp Literature Special Collections PR9610.B724 C64

Ken Whittle, The Cross T Range. Sydney: H. John Edwards, [195-?]. Pulp Literature Special Collections PR9610.W46 C76

John Winton Heming (1900-1953) once made the claim for most prolific Australian author by listing his achievements: 177 Westerns, 32 mysteries, 4 children’s books, 90 love novelettes, numerous science-fiction novelettes, a handful of pirate books, 17 adventure novelettes, 1500 short stories, songs, poems and plays. He had 16 or more pseudonyms, including Tex Barton.

Heming’s method of writing was simple: ‘I work to a system, so many pages to a chapter and when you get near the end of a chapter you slam in the biggest and most interesting fact you can think of. The first three pages of the following chapter are devoted to justifying the end of the last one.’ Little is known about writers Luke Bragg and Ken Whittle. In the 1950s, H. John Edwards, publisher of Whittle’s The Cross T Range, was taken over by Action Comics.

Tex Barton, The Avenger. Sydney: Hastall Publishing, [1945]. Pulp Literature Special Collections PR9610.B37 A93

Luke Bragg, Colt Conversation. Sydney: Transport Publishing, [195-?]. Pulp Literature Special Collections PR9610.B724 C64

Ken Whittle, The Cross T Range. Sydney: H. John Edwards, [195-?]. Pulp Literature Special Collections PR9610.W46 C76