Frederick Faust
Frederick Faust, born on May 29, 1892, in Seattle, Washington, was a prolific American author best known by his pen name, Max Brand. His early life was marked by personal upheaval, including the death of his mother and the loss of his father at a young age, which led him to live with relatives in California. Faust began his literary career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he wrote for student publications but faced expulsion due to his rebellious behavior. He enlisted in the Canadian military during World War I but deserted before serving overseas.
Faust adopted the pseudonym Max Brand to shield his identity from potential anti-German sentiment during this tumultuous period. His writing output was immense, reportedly generating ten to twenty thousand words daily. He found commercial success with his western novels, starting with *The Untamed* in 1919, yet he often felt disdain for some of his work. While he sought critical acclaim, particularly for his poetry, he also ventured into screenwriting, creating the iconic Dr. Kildare character. His life was ultimately cut short during World War II when he was killed in action in Italy on May 12, 1944. Despite mixed critical reception, Faust's writing has been recognized for its reflection of interwar Americana, with an estimated total output of around twenty-five million words.
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Frederick Faust
- Born: May 29, 1892
- Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
- Died: May 12, 1944
- Place of death: Italy
Biography
Frederick Faust was born on May 29, 1892, at Seattle, Washington, to Civil War veteran Gilbert Leander Faust and his third wife, Elizabeth Uriel Faust. When Faust was three years old, he moved with his parents to San Joaquin Valley in California. In 1900, his mother died, and his father moved alone to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he died in 1905. Faust lived with cousins and with the principal of his high school, Modesto High School. Enrolling at the University of California at Berkeley in 1911, Faust contributed poems and stories to student periodicals. He indulged in drinking and fighting, ridiculed administrators in print, and neglected his studies, and he was expelled as a result. He joined the Canadian armed services in hopes of fighting in World War I, but he later deserted because he was not shipped overseas.
On May 29, 1917, Faust married Dorothy Schillig, whom he had met at Berkeley. They had three children. Faust focused on publishing short stories in pulp periodicals in order to earn money. He traveled to New York and asked college friends for publishing contacts. Clemens Moffat, the nephew of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), arranged for Faust to meet editor Robert H. Davis, who became Faust’s manager. Faust decided to use the name Max Brand to prevent anti-German reaction to his real name, which he wanted to use only when publishing literary writing. The All-Story Weekly printed his debut story in its September 15, 1917, issue.
During his prolific writing career, Faust generated ten to twenty thousand words a day. As Max Brand, Faust wrote his first western novel, The Untamed, in 1919. Despite his novels’ popular successes, Faust loathed some of his work. He admired Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Homer, and he preferred to base plots and characters on classical myths and figures. Faust published stories in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, and Harper’s, which he considered more respectable. He aspired to achieve critical acclaim for his poems and was disappointed when they were not well received.
Faust survived a heart attack in 1921. His health suffered from his lifestyle and abuse of medications and liquor. He moved to Italy in 1926 and lived in a Florence villa for twelve years. He created the initial Dr. Kildare tale for Cosmopolitan in 1936 and penned books and movie screenplays featuring that character for Hollywood studios in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. He also disliked screenwriting but found that it was too lucrative to avoid. Faust voluntarily accompanied the U.S. Eighty-eighth Infantry Division as a Harper’s war correspondent during the Second World War and was killed on May 12, 1944, when Allied forces attacked the Santa Maria Infante in Italy.
Many critics dismissed Faust’s pulp writing as formulaic with flawed narratives and stereotyped characters, but some scholars recognized them as indicative of interwar Americana and used them to study public demand for western lore. Readers liked his suspenseful action tales and intriguing heroes and villains. Scholars estimate that Faust wrote approximately twenty-five million words during his lifetime.