About the author
Russell Gordon Carter (1892–1957) wrote widely for children, and wrote two prize winning novels, of which Shaggy, which is as far as I know his one horse story, was one. Dedicated to “my shaggy little sorrel horse, whose soft, inquiring muzzle seemed constantly at my shoulder while I wrote this story of our golden days together,” it won the Julia Ellsworth Ford Foundation for “the Encouragement of Juvenile Literature in America”.
Russell Gordon Carter was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and was educated at Harvard. He worked to pay for his study, tutoring and waiting at table. Whilst at Harvard he was editor of the Harvard Illustrated. During World War I he served in France, an experience which informed his writing.
Once he returned from the war, he worked at The Youth’s Companion until 1926, after which he earned his living as a freelance writer. His book Three Points of Honour won a $4,000 prize from Little, Brown Publishing Co and Boys’ Life Magazine. Scout novels were one of his specialities, and he also wrote the 12-book Patriot Lad series.
Finding the book
The book is easy to find in the USA. It was not printed in the UK.
Links and sources
Terri A. Wear: Horse Stories, an Annotated Bibliography, Scarecrow Press, 1987
Russell Gordon Carter on Wikipedia
Catherine C Fullerton’s website about her father, Russell Gordon Carter (link no longer extant)
Bibliography (horse books only)
Shaggy, the Horse from Wyoming
Sutton House Ltd, Los Angeles, 1935, 152 pp, illus E R Bradley
Houghton Mifflin Co, Boston MA, 1939, 151 pp
Gordon is an American soldier serving on the front in 1918. He is separated from his sorrel
horse Shaggy when the horse gets mange. Before he returns to America, he vows that he
will find the horse.
