James French Dorrance

James French Dorrance was an American writer born in Ohio in 1879. A contemporary account says his family moved to California while he was still young, and that he graduated from Cornell in 1903 before working as a journalist and turning to fiction.

His writing career seems to have been wide-ranging and busy. Sources connected with his books and period publishing show him writing for pulp magazines in the early 1910s, contributing to silent films in the late 1910s, and publishing many novels in the 1920s and 1930s, often centered on the Old West or the Canadian Mounties. Several well-known titles connected with him include Never Fire First, The Long Arm of the Mounted, and Lonesome Town.

He also collaborated with writer Ethel Smith Dorrance, whom he married in 1906. Together they produced novels and short stories in several genres, especially Westerns, and some of their work was adapted for film. I couldn't confirm a reliable portrait image from the sources I found, so no profile image is included.