Louis L'Amour

Louis L 'Amour (March 22-1908 - June 10, 1988) was the all-time best-selling author of Western novels. Credited with 89 novels, 14 short-story collections. and two full-length works of nonfiction, which have resulted in the sale of 100 million books and have been the basis for more than 30 movies. At age 15, he set out alone to roam the world after his family in North Dakota lost all their assets during the Great Depression. L'Amour worked as a ranch hand. pro boxer, merchant seaman, banana boat loader, lumberjack, circus roustabout and a gold miner. He made his way across China and Japan, then biked through India, later salvaged a sunken treasure near Macao, and went to Paris to fulfill every young writer's romantic fantasy. L'Amour finally settled in the United States after 20 years of being a stranger everywhere. He became a master storyteller who recreated the saga of the American frontier and was a heralded as one of the six best-selling authors in the world. In 1982, he was the recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 1984 President Ronald Reagan presented L'Amour with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.