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Book marks new interest in Montana’s Dorothy Johnson

Montana woman wrote the best western stories

The greatest stories by acclaimed Montana writer Dorothy M. Johnson have been published in a single book for the first time to coincide with a revival of interest in Johnson’s work.

“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (Riverbend) includes the title story along with “A Man Called Horse,” “The Hanging Tree,” and “Lost Sister.” The Western Writers of America said these stories were four of the five best western short stories of the twentieth century and proclaimed Johnson “the best short story writer of the century.” “Time” magazine once compared the best of Johnson’s stories to Bret Harte and Mark Twain.

This year marks a resurgence of interest in Johnson’s life and work. In March Johnson was inducted in the Gallery of Famous Montanans in the state capitol. Public television will broadcast a new documentary about her later this year. By collecting Johnson’s best work in a single volume, the new book should appeal to schools and libraries as well as individuals.

Johnson wrote 17 books, 52 short stories, and countless articles during a writing career that spanned more than 60 years. “Valance,” “Horse” and “The Hanging Tree” are best known because they became major motion pictures starring John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Richard Harris, and another Montanan, Gary Cooper.

Johnson died in Montana in 1984 at the age of 78.

The 224-page paperback book sells for $12.95 and is available at bookstores.

Woman wrote the best western stories of the 20^th century

Book marks new interest in “Liberty Valance” writer

The greatest stories by acclaimed western writer Dorothy M. Johnson have been published in a single book for the first time to coincide with a revival of interest in Johnson’s work.

The 224-page paperback book sells for $12.95 and is available at bookstores or from the publisher at 1-866-787-2363.

About Dorothy M. Johnson

Excerpted from the author biography in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,

Riverbend Publishing, Helena, Montana

Dorothy Johnson’s writing always earned praise for its spare style, its accurate detail, and its unflinching analysis of people, whether heroes or villains, whites or Indians, men or women.

In the introduction to Johnson’s book Indian Country, Jack Schaefer, author of the great western Shane, wrote: “Always, to Dorothy Johnson, they are all people. Her sympathy encompasses them all. No one has written with more understanding of the mountain men and white settlers…no one has written with keener perception of the Indians themselves…The people leap into life, unforgettable…each complete, fully realized, fully known. To read her stories is to know: This is the way life was lived in frontier settlement and in Indian village.”

Time magazine compared the best of Johnson’s stories to Bret Harte and Mark Twain. The New York Times called her writing “western fiction at its best.” The New York Journal-American called her, “The most brilliant woman Western taleteller since Mary Austin.” One reviewer compared her work favorably to Ernest Hemingway. Johnson’s work was published in anthologies along with stories by John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, and Zane Grey.

Another famous Montana writer, A. B. Guthrie Jr., said “(Johnson’s) product stands high, for, make no mistake, Miss Johnson is a writer. Her works are marked by clean prose, a fine sense of organization and contrast and laconic wit.”

In 1957 the Western Writers of America gave Johnson its highest award, the Spur Award, for the best short story of 1956, “Lost Sister.” In 1976 the group presented her with the prestigious Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award for bringing “dignity and honor to the history and legends of the West.” The National Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Western Heritage Center named her book “Buffalo Woman” the outstanding western novel of 1978 and gave her the Western Heritage Wrangler Award. The group later acknowledged Johnson’s stature by saying, “Dorothy Johnson is the best short story writer of the century.”

Johnson was born December 19, 1905, in McGregor, Iowa, and moved to the small logging town of Whitefish, Montana, with her family in 1913. Raised as a widow’s daughter, she graduated from high school in Whitefish and studied creative writing under legendary English Professor H. G. Merriam at the University of Montana in Missoula, graduating in 1928.

Johnson married in 1927 and divorced in 1930. Afterward, she held office jobs in Washington and Wisconsin, pursued free-lance writing, and then worked as a magazine editor in New York City for 15 years. After selling her first short story to The Saturday Evening Post in 1930 for $400, her writing efforts were snubbed by magazines for 11 years.

Despite the disappointments, Johnson kept writing and refining her style. Her primary tools were perseverance, toil, impeccable research, and humor. Years later in a speech to aspiring writers, she elaborated on these traits: “You must be willing to bother. You must be explicit in what you write. The writer owes the reader answers to all questions, but the writer must first think of the questions.”

Johnson returned to Montana in 1950 and lived in Whitefish and Missoula for the rest of her life, occasionally traveling abroad. The 1950s and 1960s were the busiest years of her busy life. She was secretary-manager of the Montana Press Association, a university teacher, a popular speaker, and, always, a writer. She was made an honorary member of the Blackfeet tribe in 1959 and was given the name Kills-Both-Places.

Johnson died in Montana on November 11, 1984, at the age of 78. Years later she was included in a list of the 100 most influential Montanans of the 20^th century. She was called “Montana's First Lady of Letters.”