author

Earl Wayland Bowman

1875–1952

Known for lively Western adventure stories, this early 20th-century writer also had an unusual life in public service. His fiction ranges from fast-moving cowboy tales to pulp magazine storytelling, with The Ramblin' Kid remaining his best-known novel.

1 Audiobook

The Ramblin' Kid

The Ramblin' Kid

by Earl Wayland Bowman

About the author

Born in 1875 and dying in 1952, Earl Wayland Bowman wrote popular stories and novels set in the American West. His known books include The Ramblin' Kid (1920), Solemn Johnson Plus (1928), and Arrowrock (1931), and he also published "Senorita Serpente" in Weird Tales in 1923.

Beyond his writing, Bowman had a notable political side: he is identified by Wikisource as Idaho's first Socialist state senator, serving in 1915. That mix of Western novelist and state politician gives his career an especially distinctive place in regional literary history.

Reliable biographical details available online are fairly limited, so many personal details about his life are not easy to confirm. Even so, the surviving record shows a writer interested in frontier settings, action, and colorful characters, with work that still circulates today through public-domain and classic-audiobook collections.