James Reasoner (5 June 1953) is an American writer. He is the author of more than 350 novels and many short stories in a career spanning more than thirty years. Reasoner has used at least nineteen pseudonyms, in addition to his own name: Jim Austin; Peter Danielson; Terrance Duncan; Tom Early; Wesley Ellis; Tabor Evans; Jake Foster; William Grant; Matthew Hart; Livia James; Mike Jameson; Justin Ladd; Jake Logan; Hank Mitchum; Lee Morgan; J.L. Reasoner (with his wife); Dana Fuller Ross; Adam Rutledge; and Jon Sharpe. Since most of Reasoner's books were written as part of various existing Western fiction series, many of his pseudonyms were publishing "house" names that may have been used by other authors who contributed to those series.Weiss, Brett, The Writer, (May 2011), "James Reasoner", Gale's Literature Resource Center.WebBirns, Margaret (January 2007), Guide to Literary Masters and Their Works, EBSCOhost.WebFuller, Amy, Editor (2010) Gales Contemporary Authors, Volume 289. Hawk, Pat (1995). Hawk's Author's Pseudonyms II.

Life

Reasoner was born in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

. He moved to the town of

Azle, Texas Azle ( ) is a small city west of Fort Worth in Parker and Tarrant Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,947. Azle is the home of the Azle Marching Green Pride marching band and the Fighting Azle ...

when he was two weeks old and still resides there. He attended

North Texas State University The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal School," ...

. He married his wife Livia Washburn in 1976, and they had two daughters. His wife also became a fiction writer of some distinction and has written more than 25 books, including several co-written with Reasoner. Early in his career, Reasoner did freelance work for newspapers. For several years, he and his wife owned two local bookstores. His first novel, ''Texas Wind'', which is one of his few mysteries, was published in 1980.

Literary focus

Reasoner's primary focus over the years has been on fictional stories of the

old west The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

, with more than 100 of his novels having been in this genre. However, he has also written some well regarded historical fiction on earlier periods of American history including the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

; early frontier pioneering after the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...

; and the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. Much of his work has involved series novels typically with continuing characters, although he has written several stand-alone novels as well. A majority of his western novels were written for the established western fictional series of several publishing houses that sometimes used other authors to work on these series, hence the use of "house" pseudonyms for these novels determined by the publisher. This body of his work includes his writing for

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing in ...

(Abilene series); Jove (Longarm and Lone Star series);

Signet Books The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publishe ...

(Trailsman series); and

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

(Cody's Law series), among others. However, he also wrote two Western series with his own name (Wind River, Justice Stark), as well as several stand-alone western novels. His ten book historical fiction series on Civil War battles followed the Brannon family through the war, as described in the separate Wikipedia article on the James Reasoner Civil War Series (see external link below). This series received favorable reviews, with one review describing his work as "robust, detail-rich, and well-paced."Publishers Weekly (October 9, 2000), "James Reasoner's Civil War Battle", Gale's Literature Resource Center.Web Reasoner wrote six books in the 1990s as prequels to

Noel Gerson Noel Bertram Gerson (1913-1988) was an American author who wrote 325 books, including several best sellers, among them two screenplay novelizations penned under the pseudonym Samuel Edwards, ''The Naked Maja'', and ''55 Days at Peking''. Peacock, ...

's popular twenty-four book Wagons West series. These books provided fictional accounts of American frontier pioneering following the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 1800s. The books were part of two trilogies, The Frontier Trilogy and The Empire Trilogy. They were written after Gerson's death in 1988, and Reasoner used the same pseudonym, Dana Fuller Ross, that Gerson had used for the earlier books.

Partial bibliography

A partial listing of Reasoner's books follows: The Civil War Battle Series, written as James Reasoner: *Manassas (1999) *Shiloh (1999) *Antietam (2000) *Chancellorsville (2000) *Vicksburg (2001) *Gettysburg (2001) *Chickamauga (2002) *Shenandoah (2002) *Savannah (2003) *Appomattox (2003) The Wagons West Frontier Pioneering Prequels, written as Dana Fuller Ross: *Westward (1992) *Expedition (1993) *Outpost (1993) *Honor (1998) *Vengeance (1999) *Justice (1999) The Wind River western fiction series, written as James Reasoner: *Wind River (1994) *Thunder Wagon (1994) *Wolf Shadow (1994) *Medicine Creek (1995) *Dark Trail (1995) *Judgment Day (1995) Selected western series with multiple authors, with Reasoner using "house" pseudonym: *Stagecoach Station series, seven books written as Hank Mitchum (1987-1991) *Abilene series, fifteen books written as Justin Ladd (1988-1990) *Cody's Law series, ten books written as Matthew Hart (1991-1995) *Longarm series, forty-one books written as Tabor Evans (1993-2007) *Trailsman series, twenty books written as Jon Sharpe (2002-2008)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reasoner, James 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American historical novelists Living people People from Fort Worth, Texas Novelists from Texas 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers People from Azle, Texas Year of birth missing (living people)