James, Will (1892-1942), was a Canadian-born writer and illustrator of stories about the American West. He received the Newbery Medal in 1927 for Smoky the Cowhorse (1926), a book popular with both children and adults. James wrote and illustrated his books based on his own experience as a cowboy. He wrote in the everyday language of the West.
James was born on June 6, 1892, in St.-Nazair-d’Acton, in the Canadian province of Quebec. His birth name was Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufualt. James claimed to have been born in the state of Montana, in the United States. James also claimed that his parents died when he was a young boy and that he was adopted by a French-Canadian trapper. In the 1910’s, he went to the United States. He took the name William Roderick James and worked as a cowboy on ranches from Texas north to Canada. James wrote Lone Cowboy: My Life Story (1930), a fictionalized autobiography. His other books include The Drifting Cowboy (1925), Home Ranch (1935), and The American Cowboy (1942). James died on Sept. 3, 1942.
