Who wrote the novel that John Ford's The Searchers adapted?

John Ford’s The Searchers adapted Alan Le May’s novel The Searchers. Published in 1954, Le May’s Western fiction supplied the film with its central premise: a long, obsessive search for a kidnapped girl across the Texas frontier.

Ford’s 1956 film stars John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, a Civil War veteran who spends years pursuing his niece Debbie after Comanche raiders attack his family’s homestead. Jeffrey Hunter plays Martin Pawley, Ethan’s companion and Debbie’s adopted brother. Although the movie follows the novel’s broad pursuit narrative, the screenplay reshaped characters, events, and themes for the screen.

Alan Le May was an experienced Western novelist and screenwriter, not merely a writer whose work was loosely associated with the film. His other novel The Unforgiven was also adapted into a major Western film, directed by John Huston in 1960. A frequent mix-up is confusing Le May with Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour, both famous Western authors but neither the source novelist for The Searchers.