Frederick Nolan (writer)

Nolan was born on 7 March 1931 in Liverpool,[1] where he was educated, as well as in Aberaeron in Wales.

At age 21, Nolan began the research that established him as one of England's leading authorities on the American West. In 1954, he co-founded The English Westerners' Society.[2]

At the start of his career, he became first a reader, and later an editor, for Corgi (Bantam) Books in London. Moving to London in the early 1960s made it possible for him to pursue the other consuming interest of his life: American musical theatre. During this time, he also began writing Western fiction as Frederick H. Christian, a pseudonym derived from his own, his wife Heidi's, and his oldest son's first names.

Over the next decade, while working in publishing – with Transworld, then Penguin, Collins, and Granada in London, and later with Ballantine and Warner in New York - he produced 14 Westerns as well as a considerable body of journalism.

On 4 July 1973, Nolan quit his job as a highly paid publishing executive and signed a contract to write eight full-length novels in a year. The first of these was The Oshawa Project (published in the U.S. as The Algonquin Project), which MGM later filmed as Brass Target. Since that time Nolan has completed more than 70 books, a similar number of biographical studies, and articles for historical journals.

One of the foremost authorities on the life and times of Billy the Kid,[3] and the history of the American West in general, Nolan appeared frequently in television documentaries dealing with the subject, as well as lecturing to historical societies in the U.K. and U.s., and on cruise ships.

His Westerns include the Angel series of books as well as five additional books in the Sudden series created by Oliver Strange. These have latterly been reissued under new titles, while the Angel series now appears under the pseudonym Daniel Rockfern (which is an anagram of "Frederick Nolan").

Nolan died on 15 June 2022, at the age of 91.[4][5]

In 1993, Nolan received the Border Regional Library Association of Texas Award for Literary Excellence. In 2001, he was awarded the first France V. Scholes Prize for outstanding research from the Historical Society of New Mexico. The same year, he received the first J. Evetts Haley Fellowship from the Haley Memorial Library in Midland, Texas. In 2005, the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association (WOLA) gave him its highest honour, the Glenn Shirley Award, for his lifetime contribution to outlaw-lawman history. In 2006, The Westerners Foundation named his The West of Billy the Kid one of the 100 most important 20th-century historical works on the American West. In 2007, the National Outlaw-Lawman Association (NOLA) awarded him its William D. Reynolds Award in Recognition of Outstanding Research and Writing in Western History. A year later, True West Magazine named him "Best Living Non-fiction Writer".

• Frederick Nolan website.
• Author Profile of "Frederick H. Christian", at Piccadilly Publishing.
• Richard Benke, "British Writer Shoots Holes in the Legend of a Gunslinging Billy the Kid; History: Author says much of the misinformation can be traced to a book partly written by the sheriff who killed Billy in 1881", Los Angeles Times, 20 August 2000.
• Dale Walker, "Folklore Saved, Passed Along by Western University Press" Rocky Mountain News, 31 May 1992.
• "Was 'Blood and Guts' General killed by Conspirators?", The Montreal Gazette, 12 December 1978.
• Tim Carlson, "'Brass Target': The Story Behind the Movie", The Hour, 11 January 1979.
• Newgate Callendar, "Crime", New York Times, 26 April 1987.
• Francie Grace, "Billy The Kid Still Making News", CBS News, 10 June 2003.
• Dave Walker, "The Kid is Alright", Phoenix New Times, 2 October 1991.
• "The death of General George S. Patton"
• Interview With Frederick Nolan on CNN Live Saturday, aired 14 June 2003.