Herbert Farris

Herbert Farris is a little-documented American fiction writer whose surviving work points to a home in the pulp-magazine world of the 1920s. Project Gutenberg currently lists Greener than Spruce as his available title there, and the text itself identifies him as the author of Plenty Grub an’ Plenty Gold as well.

Greener than Spruce was originally published by Street & Smith Corporation in 1926, produced from the June 5, 1926 issue of Western Story magazine. The story follows an inexperienced prospector in Alaska and leans into themes of ambition, survival, and learning the hard way, giving a good sense of the rugged adventure fiction readers enjoyed at the time.

Archive records for Western Story also show Herbert Farris publishing other short fiction in the magazine, including Put to Plowin’, Salt for the Goose, Burglars’ Day in Drydust, and Tinfoil. Beyond those publication traces, biographical details about his life are hard to confirm, which makes his fiction the clearest window into his voice: lively, plainspoken, and drawn to tough landscapes and practical people.