author
James French Dorrance
1879–1961
A prolific early 20th-century storyteller, he wrote fast-moving Westerns and Canadian Mounted mysteries, often with a strong feel for frontier action. Several of his books have found new readers through public-domain editions, including Never Fire First and The Long Arm of the Mounted.
3 Audiobooks
Lonesome Town
by E. S. (Ethel Smith) Dorrance, James French Dorrance
Never Fire First: A Canadian Northwest Mounted Story
by James French Dorrance
The long arm of the Mounted
by James French Dorrance
About the author
James French Dorrance was an American novelist born in 1879 who wrote popular fiction in the early 20th century. He is best known for adventure stories set in the West and in the world of the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, with titles including Never Fire First and The Long Arm of the Mounted.
He also collaborated with his wife, Ethel Smith Dorrance, on novels and short stories across several genres. Their joint work included books such as Lonesome Town, while Ethel Smith Dorrance's biographical record notes that the couple wrote together on fiction that often leaned toward Western and Mountie themes.
James French Dorrance died in 1961. Although he is not widely remembered today, his fiction still circulates through library reprints and public-domain collections, where readers can discover his brisk, old-fashioned style and taste for rugged settings.