The man who practically invented the modern American cowboy novel hated his first major Western project so much he denied writing it until he died. Before the paperbacks, Louis L'Amour was an itinerant laborer, merchant sailor, professional boxer, and soldier, and his first successful recurring character was a mercenary sea captain in the Pacific, not a cowboy.

Born in 1908 in Jamestown, North Dakota, L'Amour absorbed classical adventure books in the library and raw sensory detail from the dying frontier. A John Wayne connection turned his story into the film Hondo, and a clever rights deal plus a three-books-a-year contract with Bantam launched an empire of over 100 novels and 320 million copies.

• His childhood split between the library and his father's veterinary barn
• The 1920s economic collapse that forced the family on ...