Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) was a prolific western writer who once said "I write my books to be read aloud and I think of myself in that oral tradition." He wrote over 400 short stories and 100 novels, as well as numerous television scripts and screenplays. His books have been translated into 10 languages. At the time of his death in 1988, there were over 200 million copies of his books in print.

Louis Dearborn LaMoore was born in Jamestown, North Dakota in 1908, the youngest of seven children. His father, Louis Charles LaMoore, was a veterinarian and enjoyed sports, especially boxing, which he taught his three sons. His mother, Emily Dearborn LaMoore, had been trained as a teacher before her marriage, and loved to read and tell both family and western stories to her children. As a boy, he heard stories of the family's French-Irish forefathers, rugged westward-moving frontiersmen and women whose roots in...