The Naked Blade

New York: Greystone Press, (1938).

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Hardcover. First edition. Very slight foxing to the endpapers and the jacket flaps, else fine in fine dustwrapper, and very uncommon thus. One of the less used Faust pseudonyms, a swashbuckler set amongst the Caribbean in the golden age of piracy. The hero, soldier of fortune Ivor Kildare, is either an inside joke by Brand (author of the long-running Dr. Kildare series), or an attempt to give his medical hero an illustrious ancestor.

Item #75415

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Item #75415 The Naked Blade. George CHALLIS, Frederick Faust aka Max Brand.

Max Brand
birth name: Frederick Schiller Faust
born: 5/29/1892
died: 5/12/1944

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Biography

Seattle-born author who worked as a cowhand in California, attended Berkeley, joined then deserted the Canadian Army, and finally settled down to writing full-time. He was incredibly prolific and wrote numerous books under his birth name (Frederick Faust) and a variety of pseudonyms. Today he is best known for his work published as Max Brand, including the classic Western Destry Rides Again and his popular series Dr. Kildare. Although middle-aged when WWII broke out and suffering from chronic heart disease (he had had a heart attack in 1921), he became a front line war correspondent and was fatally wounded by shrapnel in Italy in 1944.more

Collecting tips:

Brand wrote so many works that a complete collection will take you quite a while to assemble. His most desirable, and hence most expensive, include his first, The Untamed, Destry Rides Again, and Calling Dr. Kildare, featuring his stalwart physician hero.more