Max Brand

MAX BRAND was one of a total of fifteen pen names used by Frederick Schiller Faust, a prolific writer best known for his fictional characters Dr. James Kildare and Harrison Destry. Born in Seattle and raised in California, Faust began writing as a university student and sold stories to All-Story Weekly, Argosy Magazine and Western Story Magazine during the 1910s and 1920s. Many of his stories inspired film adaptations, and his character Dr. Kildare has been featured in motion pictures, radio, television and comic books. During the 1930s, Faust, his wife, and their three children relocated to Hollywood, where he worked as a screenwriter. Faust was the subject of Frank Gruber’s book The Pulp Jungle. Destry Rides Again was first published in 1930, in a series of installments under the title Twelve Peers in Frank Blackwell's Western Story Magazine. It was republished, as a paperback, later that year under the title Destry Rides Again. (The word “again” in the title refers to Destry's freedom after being released from prison; the novel was Destry’s debut.) During his literary career, Faust wrote more than 300 serialized novels for magazines and about as many short stories. His total literary output is estimated to have been between 25,000,000 and 30,000,000 words.