The Pulp Fictioneers: Frederick Faust
From rehupa.com, July 2010
Mention the name Frederick Faust to a casual reader of pulp era fiction, you might get a blank look. Mention Max Brand and you will get recognition. Frederick Faust (1892-1944) was one of the kings of the pulps. Faust was yet another discovery by Robert Davis who edited the Munsey magazine, All-Story. Davis helped discover Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, Ray Cummings etc and one of those seminal editors who help create an era. Faust started under his own name in 1917 but switched to using pseudonyms for his pulp fiction while saving his name for his poetry. Faust would write poetry part of the day and then grind out pages of pulp magazine fare which paid the bills. As Max Brand, he is best remembered today for a huge amount of western fiction he produced. He also produced spy stories, boxing, 18th Century swashbucklers, Renaissance Italy, dog stories, aviation stories etc. Faust produced a small number of fantastic stories and one lost race novel (“The Smoking Land”).
If one wanted to sample Faust, we don’t have to put together a hypothetical anthology. One already exists- The Collected Stories of Max Brand (Bison Books, 1994). Included are a spy story, one of the Tizzo stories, a Dr. Kildare story, some poetry, and of course westerns. Not a bad primer at all.
Faust’s writing style can be described as both smooth and poetic. He was not hard-boiled in his prose. His westerns are mythic westerns with no particular set time and place but a hazy Old West that probably never existed. There you will find reworkings of old Greek myths with a western setting. There is often a hint of the supernatural in his stories. Once you start reading him, you can see why he was so popular.
Faust moved from the pulps to the slick magazines in his last years. He became a correspondent in WWII. Faust died in 1944 in Italy during the offensive to break the stalemate at Monte Cassino and Anzio. Supposedly, he told the medics to get the other wounded out first during which he bled to death. So Faust gained his place in Valhalla.
One Faust reprint project I would like to see is getting all of his swashbucklers into book form. If Dorchester Publishing who continues to publish lots of “Max Brand” with their Leisure imprint ever decides to expand their adventure line beyond Gabriel Hunt books, Faust would be a great starting point.