James Robert Richard (1900-1977)
aka Robert Sydney Bowen

James Robert Richard was the pseudonym of  Robert Sydney Bowen Jr who was an American author and journalist. He was born in Boston in 1900. As a teenager he left America and travelled to France and the UK. Lying about his age, the young Robert, enlisted in the British Flying Corps and became a pilot. After the war he worked as a journalist for newspapers in Britain, France and America. He was also editor of Aviation Magazine.

In the 1930s he began his writing career with a non-fictional aviation book, and then branched into fiction, penning war and adventure stories for several pulp magazines. He even started his own pulp fiction war magazine. In the Second World War he was commissioned to write adventure stories based on the war and the Dave Dawson series came into being. The series immensely popular and it is probably these books he is most famous for. After this success, the author went on to write another war series, The Red Randall series, and also many more books aimed at teenage boys - these were for the most part sports or adventure orientated.

Using the pseudonym of James Robert Richard, he wrote another 9 books, most of which were horse themed. He also wrote one horse story under his real name. I don't know what his connection was to horses, if any. His horse books were mainly adventures/mysteries set against ranching backdrops and again aimed at boys.

Horse & Pony Books:

PHANTOM MUSTANG
(LOTHROP [USA] 1954)
SUMMARY: Wild horse story. Please contact me if you can give any more info on the plot of the book.

THE PURPLE PALOMINO
(LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD [USA] 1955)
Rare.
SUMMARY: Billy is out taking photographs of wildlife when he hears an argument and a gunshot, then sees a man riding off on a purple horse! He sets out to find the explanation for these strange happenings.

THE APPALOOSA CURSE
(LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD [USA] 1956)
SUMMARY: Frankie wins a competition to spend a holiday on an appaloosa farm but once there he finds the owners are worried about the unexplained murder of one of their ranch hands.

SNOW KING THE LIPPIZAN HORSE
(LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD [USA] 1957)
SUMMARY: Two Lipizzaners, Snow King and Snow Queen are to be delivered to Frank Baker's ranch, but their handler has a grudge against Frank and steals one of them.

DOUBLE M FOR MORGANS
(LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD [USA] 1958)
SUMMARY: A boy finds mystery and adventure involving bandits and the FBI when he spends the summer at a horse ranch.

JOKER THE POLO PONY
(LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD [USA] 1959)
Rare.
SUMMARY: Polo story. Nothing more known - please contact me if you can provide any info on the plot of this book.

Collector's Info:
For the most part not very common titles. The Purple Palomino and Joker The Polo Pony are quite rare and may be expensive, the others are a bit easier to find and cheaper, in the USA at least. All hard to find elsewhere.

As Robert Sydney Bowen:

CANYON FURY
(LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD [USA] 1952)
(1st UK edition CASSELL 1954)
Published in the UK in 1954.
SUMMARY: Johnny goes to visit his friend Jeff on his Arabian horse farm, but when he arrives both the colts and Jeff himself go missing!

Collector's Info:
The only one of the author's horse stories to be published in the UK. Unfortunately this doesn't make it easy to find here as this edition is pretty rare. The American edition is a little more common, though still on the rare side.