Jackson Gregory

Many Grosset & Dunlap dustwrappers provided the following about-the-author blurb above a list of Jackson's westerns: "Mr. Gregory has won a place as one of the most entertaining & successful American story tellers. The backgrounds of his tales are authentic for he 'lives his stories' by locating in the place where the plot is laid & becoming for the time a native son." This is how his sense of "place" in his stories came to be so acute. Many were set along the California/Mexico border, as this was his most familiar stomping ground.

He was born in Salinas, California on March 12, 1882, Gregory taught in California highchools, eventually becoming a principal, before his journalistic then novelist career took flight. He had two sons by Lotus McGlashan, whom he married in 1910. He began writing for the pulp magazine Adventure in 1915 & was later a regular in Western Story. His first western in book format was The Outlaw (1916); he produced one to three westerns a year up to the time of his death on June 12, 1943, with additional books appearing posthumously. His last was a paperback original, Hardcase Range (1958). He dabbled at fantasy, mysteries, & south seas adventure but the greater percentage of his works are action-westerns.

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