Hoffman Birney (1891-1958)

American author. Born in Philadelphia in 1891. Full name Herman Hoffman Birney. He served in the army during the First World War, and afterwards continued to work for the military in the research and development side. He began writing in 1927 and penned a number of novels for both adults and children, mainly Western/cowboy/indian type stories, often historical, plus some non-fictional accounts of American history. Some of the children's westerns were more generally horse stories, I have noted two below, but there are possibly more. As well as writing books he also worked as the western novel critic for The New York Times.

Hoffman Birney also wrote under the pseudonym of David Kent.


Source: www.cowboydirectory.co.uk

Horse & Pony Books:

STEELDUST: THE STORY OF A HORSE
(GROSSET & DUNLAP [USA] 1928)
ILLUSTRATED BY LEE MANNING DEV
SUMMARY: Ranching type story. Young Ted rescues the blue roan Steeldust from the cruel and dastardly Van Harts. They have no qualms about giving the horse to Ted as they think the horse will injure the boy, thus helping in their plans to bankrupt Ted's family.

THE PINTO PONY
(PENN [USA] 1930)
SUMMARY: Indian pony story.

Collector's Info:
Steeldust, although not too hard to find in the USA, is not easy to find with jacket and jacketed copies can be expensive. The Pinto Pony is slightly rarer and again hard to get hold of with a jacket. Both are hard to find outside of the USA.