Following are thoughts and observations about some of the many authors in this book. Some are friends and/or acquaintances, past and present; some are authors who we’ve admired from afar.
Russell Annabel. His stories of the wild and woolly days of frontier Alaska are part of our outdoor lore. Jay has spent time fishing in the Talkeetna Mountains, where “Rusty” did much of his hunting. They seem to be about as wild now as they were then.
John Barsness. Lives in a remote part of Montana and is one of the true bards of the West.
Rick Bass. Rick Bass, who lives in the Yaak Valley of northern Montana, has written numerous magazine articles and prizewinning books. His most recent book was The Lost Grizzlies: A Search for Survivors in the Wilderness of Colorado. Our personal favorite has always been The Deer Pasture.
Fred Bear. The undisputed father of modern bowhunting.
Peter Beard. Peter Beard’s photography is exceptional, his work in Africa unparalleled
Walter Dalrymple Maitland “Karamojo” Bell. Bell is the first hunter to ever take a high-powered rifle to East Africa. A professional elephant hunter and artist-adventurer, his books on hunting are must-reads.
Stephen Bodio. Stephen J. Bodio is a full-time writer, and old-fashioned naturalist, and a true sportsman. His book reviews are world famous.
Vance Bourjaily. Vance Bourjaily wrote for many magazines over the years, including The New Yorker and Esquire. Probably his best known book is The Unnatural Enemy.
Paul Brandreth. Naturalist, conservationist, and buckskin-clad hunter from the Adirondacks, Paulina Brandreth used “Paul” for fear she would not be taken seriously in a male-dominated sport. Her book Trains of Enchantment (1930) is a classic.
Tom Brown. Tom runs a wilderness survival school in New Jersey, with a spreading network of similar institutions throughout the country, and knows the ways of the natural world as well as anyone. He’s been trying for years to get Kay to attend his school; he may yet.
Frank Calkins. Frank Calkins was a game warden in Utah who protected game animals, pursued lawbreakers, helped law abiders—and never forgot that he too was once a small boy with a rod and a gun.
Peter Hathaway Capstick. Long known as the great white hunter of the twentieth century, Capstick wrote of his experiences in compelling fashion. He has many followers, many skeptics,
Jim Carmichel. The longtime shooting editor of Outdoor Life, Jim Carmichel is one of the most respected names in the field today. He taught Jay’s wife, Lorrain, how to shoot and shoot well—something Jay will always hold against him.
James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales give the reader a close look at New York in the eighteenth century. The Last of the Mohicans is pure adventure, dating back to the French and Indian Wars.
Jim Corbett. Hunter and sportsman, Corbett roamed Indian in the early twentieth century, helping villages rid themselves of marauding tigers. His book Man-Eaters of Kumaon has been compared to Kipling’s Jungle Books.
Ben East. A longtime field editor for Outdoor Life, Ben East was well known not only for his writing skills, but also for his ability to take stories written by others who were outdoorsmen first, writers second, and transform them into gripping tales.
Billy Ellis. Big-game hunter, esteemed member of Safari Club International and writer of an entertaining memoir in Hunter to the Dawn (1988), Billy Ellis is also a Civil War historian. He is a devoted member of the 11th Mississippi Memorial Committee; one of his relatives was among the few from the regiment who survived Gettysburg.
William Faulkner. His works are the South. His story, “The Bear” (1931) is a true classic of American literature.
Jim Fergus. Jim wrote one of the best traveling-hunter books of all time in 1992 with A Hunter’s Road. His book, 1001 White Women, is a must-read.
Corey Ford. Perhaps the finest writer ever to appear in the pages of Field & Stream/ The Road to Tinkhamtown (1970) can move anyone.
Frank Forester. Forester was the nom de plume of Henry William Herbert, a prolific British writer who moved to the United States in 1830.
William Harnden Foster. His New England Grouse Shooting (1947) is still the finest upland bird-hunting book around.
Erle Stanley Gardner. Not only did he write about the outdoors, he also wrote the Perry Mason series.
Jim Hamm. An expert bowyer, he writes about the craft in an understandable, thorough manner, weaving history and humor throughout his descriptions of the nearly lost art of hand making bows and arrows.
Robert Hardy. Robert Hardy is not only one of Britain’s finest actors, but also an acknowledged expert on the long-bow and how it is made.
Max Hastings. Max Hastings is helping in the unending battle of Britain between sportsmen and nonsportsmen. He has written extensively about the British Labour Party’s efforts to ban fox hunting and other blood sports.
Ernest Hemingway. Where it all begins, and ends.
Gene Hill. Readers used to look forward to each issue of Sports Afield just so they could read his “Tailfeathers” column. When he moved to Field & Stream in the late 1970s, many followed.
Ray P. Holland. Ray P. Holland wrote two popular books in the 1940s: Shotgunning in the Uplands and Shotgunning in the Lowlands. Both were notable for their entertainment as well as educational values.
Robert F. Jones. His book Bloodsport (1974) has become a cult novel for outdoorsmen.
Elmer Keith. The quintessential proponent of large-caliber firearms. When faced with detractors, his classic response was, “What, you mean I’ll kill it too dead?”
Tom Kelly. Tom Kelly is the author of two highly successful and now classic books, The Tenth Legion and Dealer’s Choice. He lives in Spanish Fort, Alabama.
Ted Kerasote. Jay was his editor at Sports Afield for twenty years. They have gone through good and bad times, and will always be friends.
Rudyard Kipling. “Rikki-tikki-tavi,” in The Jungle Books (1894), will always remind Jay of his father. Being exposed to Kipling at a young age no doubt affected the course of his life.
Lawrence R. Koller. His Shots at Whitetails (1948) is our favorite whitetail book of all time. Jay’s hunting club in the Catskills is maybe a mile through the woods from Koller’s old Eden Falls Club, which still exists (although the old clubhouse is gone, replaced by a modern one).
Aldo Leopold. His A Sand County Almanac (1949) remains as relevant to conversation today as it was fifty years ago.
Jack London. London wrote an incredible fifty-one books in his lifetime. For an outdoor adventure, his Call of the Wild is tough to beat.
Gordon MacQuarrie. Set in northern Wisconsin, his Stories of the Old Duck Hunters are humorous, entertaining, and timeless.
John Madson. John Madson wrote for numerous publications, including Smithsonian and Audubon; his most popular book, The Tall Grass Prarie, came out in 1982.
David Mamet. One of America’s foremost playwrights would just as soon go deer hunting.
Terry McDonell. Formerly the editor of the Time Inc. Sports Group, we worked with him for three years at Sports Afield.
Thomas McGuane. A dedicated conservationist, screenwriter, novelist, and essayist, his An Outside Chance (1990) is one of our favorite books.
Thomas McIntyre. Thomas McIntyre, one of Field & Stream’s hunting editors, lives in Sheridan, Wyoming, with his wife and son. Part of his heart will always be in Africa. Tom has hunted turkeys with both of us near Peter’s home in Warwick, New York.
John Miller. Miller wandered through Vermont during deer season, dropping by various deer camps, trying to find out what makes them tick. What he found, with words and camera, was an institution based on camaraderie, common bonds, and family heritage.
John Myers Myers. A friend of Jay’s, Andy Dyess, lent him The Wild Yazoo and suggested he read it. The country described is in many ways unchanged since the book’s publication in 1947. Jay has hunted there a number of times.
Richard K. Nelson. One of the best-known deer researchers today, his book Finding Common Ground (1996) has been critically acclaimed.
Ted Nugent. A rock ‘n’ roller known as the Motor City Madman, Nugent’s love for the outdoors is passionate, his attempts to instill outdoor values in today’s youth unending.
Dan O’Brien. Author of four novels, a collection of short stories, and The Rites of Autumn, O’Brien lives with his wife, Kris, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Equinox is his sixth book.
Jack O’Connor. The longtime guns editor of Outdoor Life, O’Connor’s theories on using lighter calibers are still debated today.
Sigurd Olson. One of the first and finest naturalists and environmentalists, Olson devoted much of his life to protecting the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. Much of his earlier writing was of hunting. He passed away in 1982, at age eighty-three.
José Ortega y Gasset. His Meditations on Hunting (1942) embodies all that true hunters believe.
John Ozoga. A well-known wildlife research biologist living in Munising, Michigan, Ozoga has written extensively about whitetails and the animals that pretty on them.
Dr. Saxton Pope. When he wrote Hunting with the Bow and Arrow (1923), he dedicated it to “Robin Hood, A Spirit That At Some Time Dwells in the Heart of Every Youth.”
Jim Posewitz. His book, Beyond Fair Chase, done in cooperation with Orion—The Hunters Institute, set out ethical guidelines for all hunters, and for the first time truly explored the importance and meaning of the hunting experience. A must-read for all hunters, no matter what their quarry or weapon.
George Reiger. George Reiger was a conservation editor of Field & Stream, and is a frequent contributor to many national and local magazines. His books include the Pulitzer Prize runner-up Wanderer on My Native Shore, The Wings of Dawn, The Wildfowler’s Quest, and many others. He probably doesn’t remember, but Jay shot his first goose while in a blind with him near Easton, Maryland.
Theodore Roosevelt. What can be said? Past president of the United States, a founder of the Boone & Crockett Club in 1887, helped establish Yellowstone National Park. Perhaps little known is the fact that once, while hunting in the South, he passed up a shot on a smallish black bear, which other members in his hunting party promptly dubbed the Teddy Bear. The rest is history.
Robert Ruark. His Horn of the Hunter was one of the classic African safari books. For a look at the glamorous side of outdoor writing, if such a side exists, read The Honey Badger.
Ernest Thompson Seton. One of America’s first naturalists, in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His pen-and-ink sketches formed the basis for much wildlife art that followed.
Steve Smith. Steve Smith is a fanatical hunter of waterfowl, ruffed grouse, and woodcock. He lives in Michigan, where he manages to “hide from my employers enough that I can hunt six days.” He has written numerous books and magazine articles.
Mark Sullivan. His Purification Ceremony (1997) is one of the best outdoor adventure/mystery stories of the decade.
Leo Tolstoy. The amount of hunting literature from Russia proved to be astounding. Tolstoy, is, of course, one of the best.
Ivan Turgenev. An uncanny observer of Russians of every class, Turgenev’s huntsmen learn the touching and frequently comic secrets in the complex relationships between peasants and their masters. Folklore and insights into nature abound in his books.
Lamar Underwood. Underwood has edited Sports Afield and Outdoor Life, and has written numerous magazine articles and books, including the recent Skyhorse books, 1001 Fishing Tips and 1001 Hunting Tips. We have both had the pleasure of working with him over the years. At Outdoor Life, he introduced Jay to his future wife. He is a longtime friend of Peter and his wife, Katie.
Lord Warwick. Writing about shooting parties in the 1800s, Warwick gives a glimpse into the royal lifestyle of the time. There were a few excesses.
Col. Townsend Whelen. A shooter, hunter, sportsman, and true gentleman, he was at various times on the staff of The American Rifleman, Field & Stream, and Outdoor Life.
Lee Wulff. Innovator, conservationist, explorer, expert fisherman, Lee Wulff was a remarkable man. Jay had the pleasure of spending time with both Lee and his wife, Joan, who runs the Wulff Flyfishing School in Lew Beach, New York.
Ed Zern. Ed Zern was the hugely popular columnist for Field & Stream magazine, whose “Exit Laughing” on the last page was long a favorite of that magazine’s readers.