A LEGEND RETURNS
UNM Press republishing works of Western novelist and New Mexican Jack Schaefer
Fans of Western novels will be thrilled at this news: A batch of 12 books by the late Jack Schaefer, a writer of Western novels, are to be back in print — and as ebooks — by next fall.
They can thank the perseverance and patience of John Byram, director of the University of New Mexico Press.
The press just republished as quality paperbacks the first three titles of the dozen — the coming-of-age novel “Old Ramon” and “The Canyon,” a novel based on a Cheyenne legend, and the true-story collection “Heroes Without Glory — Some Good Men of the Old West.”
Byram explained how UNM Press came to get the rights to reprint these titles.
In 2013, he heard that one of Schaefer’s popular Western novels, “Monte Walsh,” (1963) had gone out of print and the rights had reverted to the author’s estate.
“I wrote a note to the agency that controls the rights to the estate’s literary works and asked if it’s possible to reprint ‘Monty Walsh.’ I got no answer,” Byram said.
At least not right away. Background on Schaefer. A native of Ohio, he was an Easterner who became a Westerner in midlife, though he had been writing about the Old West. A cross-country train ride and a visit to Santa Fe triggered his move.
“He’s kind of a New Mexico transplant. He moved here in 1955 and adopted New Mexico as his home, and his history of writing about the West was crystallized when he moved here,” Byram said.
Schaefer built a home outside of Santa Fe. Back to the matter of the reprinting. Almost two years after Byram’s inquiry, he heard back.
“The agency wrote me a nice response. They asked, ‘Are you still interested?’ They were considering releasing the first e-book editions as well. None had appeared officially as ebooks. That’s attractive to us,” he said.
As a genre Western novels are successful as ebooks.
UNM Press placed a bid. Long negotiations followed. The press obtained the rights to do those aforementioned first three books. The republication rights for the remaining nine titles came later, after negotiations, Byram said.
Is this a coup for UNM Press? Byram thinks so.
“It’s an amazing opportunity when a university press gets the rights to release an entire group of Westerns by such a wellknown author as Jack Schaefer,” he said.
Schaefer, who died in 1991, earned recognition for his writing. He received the 1975 Western Literature Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award and the 1986 Saddleman Award from the Western Writers of America.
All 12 of the Schaefer books UNM Press is republishing share a common front-cover design. Each has its title and author’s name on a black band at the bottom. Above that band are Western images with similar themes.
Lisa Tremaine and Catherine Leonardo of the press, together with the literary estate and the author’s son, Jon Schaefer, were involved in the design decision-making.
The paintings on the covers were created before 1920, “making them perfect in feel and also copyright-free,” said Tremaine, the press’ art director and a senior book designer. Leonardo is also a senior book designer.
For example, the illustration on the cover of “Heroes Without Glory” is “The Lost Greenhorn” by 19th century painter Alfred Jacob Miller.
This is the press’s republication schedule for the remaining nine Schaefer books.
In June, it will publish “First Blood and Other Stories,” “The Big Range,” “The Pioneers” and “Shane.”
(“Shane,” first published in 1949, became a Western film classic starring Alan Ladd.)
Scheduled for release next fall are “The Kean Land and Other Stories,” “Mavericks,” “Company of Cowards” and “Stubby Pringle’s Christmas” and “Monte Walsh.” (“Monte Walsh” was a popular film starring Lee Marvin.)