Walter D. Edmonds Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Walter D. Edmonds is a native of New York that grew up a few meters away from the Eerie Canal in Boonville. In 1919, he joined Choate Rosemary Hall, the elite school in Connecticut, where he intended to take courses in chemical engineering.
However, he would soon become Choate Literary Magazine’s editor and became very much interested in a career in writing.

After graduating from Choate, he went to Harvard, where he was a student of Charles Townsend Copeland and editor of The Harvard Advocate. By 1929, he had his first published work about the Eerie Canal titled “Rome Haul.”

This work would, later on, be adapted into a film and play titled “The Farmer Takes a Wife.” His most popular work that made his name was “Drums Along the Mohawk,” which would become a bestselling title.

In fact, it was only “Gone with the Wind,” which was published in 1936 that sold more copies during this time. Edmonds would ultimately publish more than 30 children’s fiction works and many short stories in magazines.

He would also win several awards including the 1976 National Book Award, the Newberry Medal, and the Lewis Carrol Shelf Award.

It was while he was in college that Walter D. Edmonds began writing professionally. He would eventually graduate with a degree in English from Harvard University in 1926.

Edmonds was thus a professional author right from the 1920s, as he made his mark with the publishing of “Drums Along the Mohawk.” Over the years, he published short stories in anthology collections in addition to magazines.
Some of the places where he has had his work published include Scribner’s, the Atlantic Monthly, and Harpers.

In fact, it was one of the magazine editors that suggested he pen a story about his home next to the Eerie Canal, which would become his bestselling title.

While many in his family wanted him to stop writing and instead pursue what they called a more staid calling, he never gave up.

He would later come to call himself some kind of fancy reporter that reports on events from the past rather than in the present.

In all his writing he purposed to tell the stories of New York and its people at different times in its history.

By the time Walter D. Edmonds became a popular author with “Drums Along the Mohawk,” he had already been the author of some popular historical fiction works including the 1928 published “Rome Haul.”
The work would be on bestseller lists for more than two years and would become the main selection for the Book of the Month Club.

In 1939, he got one of his biggest breakthroughs when “Drums Along the Mohawk” was picked up for adoption into a film.

The film starred Claudette Colbert and Jane Fonda and was directed by John Ford to become a critical and commercial success. Two more of his works would also make the silver Screen both having Fonda in the lead role.
The work told the story of how American farmers living in Mohawk Valley in New York dealt with the ravages of the American Revolution.

These farmers had to confront challenges such as hostile Indians, British troops, and Tory neighbors as they raised families and grew crops.

Walter Edmonds the celebrated author would ultimately die aged 94 at his home in Concord Massachusetts.

Walter D. Edmonds’ novel “Drums Along the Mohawk” is a work set in the Mohawk Valley in New York. With a setting in the Revolutionary War period, it tells a fictional account of the struggle between the Indians, the Loyalists, and the American settlers.

The valley was then a morally complicated and bloody swathe of land, where neighbors often found themselves pitted against fellow neighbors. There is a vicious struggle that combines elements of civil war and guerilla war.

At the start of the story, Magdalena and Gilbert are two newlyweds that venture into the boiling cauldron with no clue and eyes wide open. Gil has a cabin and farm and is full of hope that he will establish a huge agricultural empire.
But the Indians will have none of it as they burn cabins after attacking settlements. Gil and Lana often have to find refuge in stockades and come out to find smoking ruins forcing them to start over.

Originally published in the 1930s, it is a classic work with an old-fashioned and distinct feel that showcases the reality of the American frontier.

In the “Hands of the Senecas” by Walter D. Edmonds tells the story of several pioneer women. They are taken from their New England colonial village by Indians, only to be separated when the Native Americans returned to their distant homes across the frontier.

The Native Americans took captives for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons included working as slaves, replacing lost relatives, for ransom in times of conflict, providing entertainment, and bearing children.

While this is a very old work, Edmonds surprisingly does not make any judgment on the morality of the captors. Instead, he writes about the varying strengths of the captives and their reactions.

This makes for a truly fascinating historical fiction work that is also full of cultural discovery.
Whether non-fiction or fiction, these narratives remind us of how brave women and men were, as they attempted to make a new home for themselves in a frequently hostile and unfamiliar environment.

“The Matchlock Gun” is an exciting Indian and Frech War story that comes with an absent father, brave son, funny little girl, and heroic mother, which are the perfect components for a great plot.

In the middle of the 18th century, New York was still the property of the British Empire and the Indians and French were constant threats to the settler families that lived there.

This is where Edward, a teenage boy is living with his family amid all the chaos. When his father is called to be part of a team watching for raiders in the north, Edward is left behind to protect his little sister and mother from possible Indian attacks.

His father had carefully taught him how to use the family’s matchlock gun, which was almost twice as long as he was tall. But would he be able to use it when trouble finally appeared?