Author, Shane
Jack Schaefer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended Oberlin College and Columbia University. After a long career as an editor, feature writer, and reviewer at several large newspapers, he took up fiction writing in the 1940s. In 1949 he adapted his own short story “Rider from Nowhere,” which had earlier been serialized in a magazine, into his first novel, Shane, based loosely on Wyoming’s Johnson County War between ranchers and farmers in 1869–93. Although at the time Schaefer had never traveled farther west than Cleveland, one contemporary writer called his richly detailed Westerns “a tribute to his dogged research, devotion to facts, and storytelling ability, all honed by his newspaper work.” Shane was a success, and the 1953 movie adaptation starring Alan Ladd—now considered a classic of Western film—catapulted Schaefer to fame. Schaefer went on to publish nearly 30 books, and six more of his short stories were made into movies, including Monte Walsh. To date, Shane has sold over 12 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages.